A heartwarming, hopeful tale about coping with autism.
A loving married couple must navigate the stresses and difficulties of raising an autistic child.
This debut novel tells the story of Beth and John MacFarlane, who meet and fall in love while in the same college music class. Beth, a pianist, and John, an aspiring engineer, continue to share a deep love of music throughout their married life, especially for Fauré’s Requiem, the piece that brought them together in class. The two even name their firstborn son Gabriel, after the composer, and Beth is amazed to discover that listening to the music is the only thing that calms her colicky son. Unfortunately, Gabe’s problems turn out to be much deeper than just having colic; at around 18 months, he becomes withdrawn, unwilling (or unable) to speak and make eye contact, and overly fascinated with trains—classic signs of autism. After receiving a diagnosis, the devastated parents begin the arduous and painful journey of trying to help Gabe. From behavioral training to different diets, the two draw on the many wells of support and resources around them to carve out a meaningful life for their son. Jepson (Changing the Course of Autism, 2007), who dedicates the novel to his two autistic sons, is a doctor active in autism research, and he clearly knows his subject. From the details of the behavioral therapy Gabe receives to the financial stresses of caring for a special needs child, Jepson gets the minutiae right. But, more remarkably, he also nails the emotional turmoil of living with the condition and the toll it takes on John and Beth’s marriage and their vision for their future. Some of the dialogue feels a little stilted; it is hard to imagine, in this century, a physician like the story’s Dr. Morrison, who advises, “I would recommend that you have more children and forget about this one.” In a world where celebrities from Temple Grandin to Jenny McCarthy invoke autism on a public stage, having characters say, “Like Rain Man?,” when they hear about Gabe’s condition feels woefully out of touch. But the heart and the emotional truth of this book, in the end, come through emphatically.
A heartwarming, hopeful tale about coping with autism.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5234-4876-0
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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