You Should Read This Book

I am not a book reviewer. Sure, I posted a few rants about books I loved (or hated) on a certain unnamed bookish social media site before it got all problematic, but I don’t review books for a living and I probably never will.

I AM, however, an autistic Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and 5-ish years of clinical experience, preceded by 8-ish years of experience working with disabled adults and children, including but not limited to autistic folks.

So…I sort of know what I’m talking about?

Autism: A New Introduction to Psychological Theory and Current Debate is an undergraduate-level textbook written by two psychologists in the UK. An update to a previous edition written in 1994, Autism provides a concise but nuanced introduction to the scope and variety of behavioral, biological, cognitive, and social theories of autism, while commenting on many of the most hotly debated issues in and around the autistic community today. It’s well-organized, informative, easy to follow, research-based, compassionate to autistic people as well as non-autistic families without ever endorsing the problematic facets of either side, and – most importantly – inclusive of autistic voices at every step.

The book consists of ten chapters: an introduction to autism and the levels of psychological study, the history of autism, behavioral theories and research, biological theories and research, three chapters on cognitive theories and research (primary deficit, developmental trajectory, and information processing), social impacts, and future directions. Each chapter cites a variety of evidence for and against the theories that are presented, critiquing studies where applicable and applying findings to theoretical frameworks and real-life issues.

At the beginning of every chapter is a two-page illustration, by autistic artist Marissa Montaldi, of the concepts and debates to be introduced. Each chapter concludes with a 1-2 page response from an autistic person. These commentators include scientists, doctors, artists, parents, activists, and teachers, with responses ranging from academic reflection to anecdotes, each with the reminder that autistic voices matter in every aspect of these discussions.

Although they are not themselves autistic, Professor Francesca Happe and Dr. Sue Fletcher-Watson frequently emphasize the importance of listening to the autistic community during the research process as well as the development of clinical practice and community supports. As an introductory textbook, Autism does not have time to delve deeply into specific issues or debates, but it outlines most, if not all, of them with careful nuance and compassion. These discussions include:

• Person-first vs. identity-first language
• Functioning labels and the concept of severity
• Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and other compliance training
• Tension between autistic adults and non-autistic families of autistic people
• Autistic self-advocacy/disability rights
• The impact of gender on presentation and diagnosis
• The social model of disability
• Problems with the concept of an autism ‘cure’ or ‘prevention’
• The myth of empathy/ the ‘double-empathy problem’
• “Difference” vs “deficit”
• In-group/out-group bias between non-autistic and autistic people
• Pressures placed on families of young autistic children
• Lack of support for families of autistic people
• Pseudoscience
• Autism in the media
• The role of autistic parents of autistic children
• Lack of supports for aging autistic people

Issues in clinical and psychological research are also discussed, including heterogeneity among autistic people, difficulty designing robust experiments to test cognitive theories, lack of accessibility for autistic people who want to work in research and academic settings, and lack of testing for theories or concerns originating from autistic people. In one of my favorite quotes, the authors call out researchers for biased interpretations of research results, pointing out that nearly every difference between autistic and non-autistic people is interpreted as an impairment in the former. For example:

In neuroimaging research, differences in blood flow during a task are interpreted to show problems in the autistic group, regardless of the direction of difference from control data. If the autism group shows greater brain activity, they are ‘having to work harder to solve the task,’ but if they show reduced activity, they lack the expected neural specialisation of dedicated brain regions for the key computations!

pg. 45

I have not read the particular research they’re referring to here, but I HAVE noticed this pattern in cognitive/linguistic studies, and it’s incredibly frustrating. To see non-autistic psychologists confronting that in a textbook gives me hope for the future of academia, and I don’t mean that as hyperbole.

Between my undergraduate degree, Masters degree, and 5+ years of continuing education/professional development, I have read and listened to many, many descriptions of theory and/or research related to psychology, communication, and – yes – autism. Very very very rarely do I find academics or clinicians who view autistic people as a valuable part of the process.

In my last post, I included two screencaps of SLP seminars whose titles or descriptions blatantly insulted autistic people, but there are many examples of ableism that I haven’t documented. In the past few weeks alone, I have encountered anti-autistic ableism in two different SLP social media spaces that were designed to be inclusive and progressive. From in-jokes at the expense of autistic children, articles about the “perks” of bullying, lectures referring to “those POOR families,” assumptions that autistic adolescents will never date or maintain friendships without clinical intervention, unexamined celebrations of ABA and the man who founded it, to intentional exclusion of autistic people from conversations about “cures” and “treatments,” it has been clear to me throughout my career that the world of SLP (at least here in the States) does not consider autistic people to be valuable contributors, more or less that we may also be clinicians.

This is not to suggest that only SLPs are capable of system-wide bias against the people we are trying to serve, or that ableism only exists in the US. Look, for example, at that horrible play, or the recent, poorly-researched and reported changes made to driving license documentation in the UK. Look at the new-ish trend of mainstream media feeling shocked and inspired that some autistic people manage to have – wait for it – ACTUAL CAREERS, or the people who respond to those reports by immediately questioning the validity of their diagnoses. Perhaps you’re more interested in the discussions around legal loopholes that allow employers and contractors to pay disabled people less than minimum wage, if they pay at all. Three days ago was the Disability Day of Mourning, an annual tradition to remember disabled people who were murdered by their families. These past several weeks have been rough for autistic people, and it’s not even April yet!

All this to say, Autism was a breath of fresh air for me as an autistic clinician. After years of arguing, dodging, and/or hiding from anti-neurodiversity in my field, it’s easy to wonder if I’m the one in the wrong. Unlearning damaging stereotypes and practices is a long and ongoing process, one that is rarely if ever supported in clinical and academic culture, and sometimes I can feel years of pent-up internalized ableism just waiting to rush back and overwhelm me. This book is one of the first scholarly writings I’ve seen that does not lay the blame for every bad thing that happens to and around autistic people entirely at the feet of autistics, and that change is more valuable than I can possibly explain.

You can order the book from the publisher at their website.

Books by people of color: A rec list

In early 2016 I realized that the overwhelming majority of books I had read were written by white authors. It was one of those “duh” moments that formulated my privileged-white-person-becoming-aware-of-pervasive-systemic-racism process.  To some extent, I blame American public schools, the media, and the publishing industry, but the bottom line is that I had neglected to examine all of the ways that white supremacy has seeped into the cracks and seams of my life.  So, I made a resolution to only read books by authors of color for a year.

I highly recommend that other white readers do this: if not a full year of avoiding white authors, then a close examination of the diversity of the authors you’ve read and conscious effort to expand it.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: listening to people of color has never been more important than it is now.

I’ve created a list of some of my favorites.  I did my best to include a variety of genres, but there are definite trends.

Feel free to add your recs if you have any!

Nonfiction – Essays

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

This is a collection of thoughtful, well-written, and occasionally hilarious essays on gender, race, sexuality, body type, higher education, and Scrabble. Anything by Roxane Gay is worth a read (I’m currently reading Difficult Women, which I love so far), and this award-winning bestseller is a fantastic place to start.

Ijeoma Oluo’s articles

Okay, you caught me. Two items on this list aren’t physical books. To my knowledge, Oluo hasn’t published anything off the internet (except for the Badass Feminist Coloring Book, which I discovered while researching her and will be placing on my wish list right…now.) Nonetheless, her writing is too important to exclude, especially now.  I specifically recommend “Welcome to the Anti-Racism Movement” and “When a Woman Deletes a Man’s Comment Online.”

Nonfiction – History

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis

This one was obviously written for people who either read about history for a living or want to read about history for a living. I am not one of those people. Still, it was worth pushing through the dense material in order to see a perspective on Medieval Europe that we never got in my overwhelmingly-white American public school.

Nonfiction – Memoir

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin

Staceyann Chin, a lesbian speaker and activist from Jamaica, describes her childhood, biracial identity, adolescence, coming-out, and emigration to the United States.  Her story is emotional, charming, and powerful, and the audiobook – which she narrates – absolutely blew me away.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

This memoir was published long before Obama ran for president, and it beautifully outlines the way that his biracial identity and early activism uncovered complex issues about American race relations.

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith

I think, at a minimum, every American needs to read or listen to this book. Smith uses his life experience to illustrate hard and complicated truths, not just about the experience of black men in America but also the experiences of women, LGBTQ+ people, people with mental illness, and people with multiple marginalizing identities. There’s an audiobook narrated by actor Kevin R. Free, and it is phenomenal.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

A lawyer in Alabama who started a non-profit organization to provide legal counsel for Death Row prisoners – among a myriad of other things – Stevenson uses tragic and horrifying case examples to highlight the cruelty and racism in the American criminal justice system. This is another book that all Americans – especially white Americans and/or people who feel complacent with our justice system – need to read or listen to. (Stevenson reads the audiobook.)

Fiction – Non-speculative

Trumpet by Jackie Kay

A famous jazz musician dies, and his death reveals to the world that he was transgender in an age when trans* issues were even more poorly-understood than they are today. The book uses alternating points of view between between the late musician’s wife, adult son, and people with varying degrees of involvement in his life in order to weave a tragic and heartwarming story.

Burnt Shadows by Kamala Shamsie

I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Kamala Shamsie (see also: In the City by the Sea, Kartography), but this one is my favorite. It follows a survivor of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki as she transitions from houseguest in a British home in Delhi, to refugee in Pakistan, to wife and mother in Karachi, to elderly woman watching New York City struggling to recover after 9/11.  There is love and tragedy and destruction and the sense that everything is endless and cyclical.

(Kamala Shamsie is my former creative writing professor, which is how I found out about her. I wish she were better-known because she is a fantastic writer with important things to say, especially about politics in the Middle East and the USA.)

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Tragic and complex and layered, this series of interconnected anecdotes centers on two Native American families living on a reservation in North Dakota.  The book meanders between time period and point-of-view as aimlessly as many of its characters wander through life.  Several of Erdich’s other books are on my to-read list.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a good one for people who like unreliable narrators and hazy, ambiguous non-solutions to mysteries (I’m told that many of Ishiguro’s books are like that, so check him out if that’s your thing).  Slightly creepy, it’s a beautifully written study of mothers and daughters in post-WWII Japan and beyond.

Guapa by Saleem Haddad

A man in an unnamed Arab country narrates the 24 hours of his life after his grandmother discovers him and his boyfriend in bed together.  As he attempts – and fails – to go about a normal day, we see commentary on politics, society (Arab and Western), marginalization, and family secrets, all through the eyes of a traumatized man trying to redefine himself in a world that consistently fails to understand him.

Fiction – Spectulative (Sci Fi/Fantasy/Magical Realism)

Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

Anything by Octavia Butler is necessary reading (I read and loved Kindred, and the rest of her books are on my to-read list). She was woke before most white people knew woke was a thing, and she used sci fi/fantasy to illuminate difficult truths about racism, sexism, and classism in America. These two books, about a new religion fighting to emerge in a harsh, dystopian America, are beautiful, tragic, and surprisingly prophetic.  The second book in particular has some frightening parallels to our current political environment.

The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

The first two books in what is so far an incomplete series, these novels represent epic fantasy at its finest.  My words can’t do them justice, except to say that Jemisin 110% deserved the Hugo award she earned for the first book.  She is another author with several books on my “to-read” list. The audio books, read by Robin Miles, are also mind-blowingly good.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

Most people know Amy Tan from The Joy Luck Club, though I actually enjoyed this one more. This book fits the “magical realism” genre because the narrator is speaking to us not long after her tragic and sudden death, describing a group tour through China and Myanmar that goes horribly wrong in part because she isn’t alive to lead it. The Bonesetter’s Daughter is also a good real-world-fantasy book.

Infomacracy by Malka Older

In the somewhat-distant future, our political, social, corporate, and globalization systems will have undergone some massive changes. Two parts political thriller, one part biting social commentary, this book (the first in a yet-incomplete series) holds up a funhouse mirror to politics, capitalism, and the information age, showing us a caricature of where we could be headed.

Fiction – Young Adult

Akata Witch by Neddi Okorafor

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the Harry Potter series. There is magic, detailed world-building, compelling friendships, and an emphasis on standing up for what you believe in, even when it’s hard, even when it’s terrifying, and even when you have virtually no idea what you’re doing.  (I also enjoyed Lagoon and Binti.)

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Think Diary of a Wimpy Kid only far more profound and compelling, with an added focus on disability, segregation, poverty, death, and injustice to Indigenous people. At the same time, it somehow manages to be uplifting and occasionally hilarious. I fell head-over-heels for the protagonist and was genuinely upset when the story ended.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Another disabled-underdog protagonist with a sharp voice and compelling fish-out-of-water story; simply subtract the illustrations and add alternating points-of-view to create a more comprehensive look at this character’s life.

(If you liked one of the above two books, chances are good that you’ll like the other. Obviously, I highly recommend both.)

Shadowshaper by Daniel Older

This urban fantasy condemns police brutality, white supremacy, cultural appropriation, and gentrification. The magic is fascinating, the world-building complex, the story twisting and mysterious.  The audiobook, narrated by Anika Noni Rose, is phenomenal to the point where I would almost recommend that over the written version.  Her performance adds life and depth to the characters, sweeping you along with every step of the plot.

If You Could be Mine by Sarah Farzian

A teenage girl in Iran is in love with her (female) best friend, in a country where being gay is a crime but being transgender is not. This book uses the forbidden-queer-teenage-love story (see also: Finlater by Shawn Stewart Ruff) to explore issues of sexuality and gender identity in a way that is thoughtful, sad, and surprisingly uplifting at the same time.

Short Stories

Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta

A series of moving and beautifully written short stories about Nigerian women of different ages, classes, and sexualities.  I also enjoyed Under the Udala Trees, which is a full-length novel about a gay woman growing up in 60s/70s Nigeria.

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

Yet another fantastic author who has produced a bunch of excellent works, Baldwin is particularly focused on the intersection between the black male identity and the queer identity in America.

Karma and Other Stories by Rishi Reddi

I actually read this series of somewhat-interconnected stories a few years ago. Each story depicts Indian American culture in a different way, presenting the different struggles, losses, and successes that Indian people of multiple generations face in America.

The Water that Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu

This one is actually a single short story, rather than a collection.  It’s available to read for free here at Tor.com, so I’ll let the story speak for itself. Check it out!

Honorable mentions: 

(books and authors I enjoyed but didn’t include because I had to cap this list somewhere)

Nonfiction: A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Non-speculative Fiction: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Speculative Fiction: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord, The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino,  The Between by Tananarive Due.

Young Adult: Waters Between by Joseph Bruchac, Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova.

Short Stories: Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan, The Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Other authors to check out: Isabel Allende, John Chu, Toni Morrison, Gene Luen Yang, Malinda Lo, Salman Rushdie.

Authors I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about from multiple and/or reliable sources: Shamim Sarif, Audre Lourde, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Diaz, Nalo Hopkinson, Gabby Rivera, Zadie Smith, Manil Suri.

SUGGESTIONS FROM OTHER PEOPLE AFTER I POSTED THIS:

• Birth of a Dark Nation by Rashid Darden
• The Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• This comprehensive list of Science Fiction by black authors