Asparagus Dreams

Rating:
Summary: Autistic viewpoint on institutional life
Review: In a tone that brings to mind bubbly teenage girls, Jessica Peers recounts five years at a National Autistic Society residential school in the United Kingdom. The back cover of this book suggests that the book will give insights into Asperger's syndrome. On that point, it seems to be wrong. However, it does give a lot of insight into institutional life.

Peers has a talent for wryly amusing caricature, whether in drawing (her cartoons appear throughout the book) or in sketching out people's character in words. Not everything in the book is amusing, though. There are some truly harrowing scenes of physical and emotional abuse by staff, as well as the usual detached brusqueness that crops up in places like that. The funny descriptions offset the often-heavy situations enough to make it readable to me without causing too much pain, and I almost wonder if the author had the same idea herself.

One thing that struck me was how much the actions and social dynamics of the people in the book reminded me of the dynamics in every disability-segregated setting I have ever been in, whether there were autistic people besides me or not. This book is one more that convinces me that whether you call it a group home, a psychiatric ward, special education, or a residential school, some things never change. There are particular spins on things depending on what the setting calls itself and what kind of person is placed in it, and this book is no exception. But its descriptions of life there are surprisingly wide in their applicability.

One thing this book is not, though, is all that insightful about what autism is. It claims to provide insight into autism, but it really doesn't. It describes situations involving a lot of autistic *people*, including the author, but in truth it has ended up more about life in that particular place than about a particular condition. It also contains the common misconception that people who appear "more autistic" are necessarily less aware of their environment and therefore less suffering from what happens around them. People should know that before buying this book -- the real focus is not necessarily the same as the apparent focus.

This is not a problem, though. There are a lot of books out there already that discuss "autism from the inside" ad infinitum. This book describes institutional dynamics from an autistic point of view, which is much rarer, and to my knowledge this is the only book by an autistic person that takes place *only* within such a place.

Rating:
Summary: Autistic viewpoint on institutional life
Review: In a tone that brings to mind bubbly teenage girls, Jessica Peers recounts five years at a National Autistic Society residential school in the United Kingdom. The back cover of this book suggests that the book will give insights into Asperger's syndrome. On that point, it seems to be wrong. However, it does give a lot of insight into institutional life.

Peers has a talent for wryly amusing caricature, whether in drawing (her cartoons appear throughout the book) or in sketching out people's character in words. Not everything in the book is amusing, though. There are some truly harrowing scenes of physical and emotional abuse by staff, as well as the usual detached brusqueness that crops up in places like that. The funny descriptions offset the often-heavy situations enough to make it readable to me without causing too much pain, and I almost wonder if the author had the same idea herself.

One thing that struck me was how much the actions and social dynamics of the people in the book reminded me of the dynamics in every disability-segregated setting I have ever been in, whether there were autistic people besides me or not. This book is one more that convinces me that whether you call it a group home, a psychiatric ward, special education, or a residential school, some things never change. There are particular spins on things depending on what the setting calls itself and what kind of person is placed in it, and this book is no exception. But its descriptions of life there are surprisingly wide in their applicability.

One thing this book is not, though, is all that insightful about what autism is. It claims to provide insight into autism, but it really doesn't. It describes situations involving a lot of autistic *people*, including the author, but in truth it has ended up more about life in that particular place than about a particular condition. It also contains the common misconception that people who appear "more autistic" are necessarily less aware of their environment and therefore less suffering from what happens around them. People should know that before buying this book -- the real focus is not necessarily the same as the apparent focus.

This is not a problem, though. There are a lot of books out there already that discuss "autism from the inside" ad infinitum. This book describes institutional dynamics from an autistic point of view, which is much rarer, and to my knowledge this is the only book by an autistic person that takes place *only* within such a place.