Daniel Isn't Talking (26 page)

My real life was not sexy or funny, while the novel is both. In my real life, I never fell in love with a therapist or threatened my husband's lover with the prospect of babysitting my son. I never yelled at a psychologist for being patronizing, or paid for doctors by hocking my engagement ring. My world was not populated by people as interesting as those in the book – and I never did battle with Bettelheim, even in my dreams.

However, there are things that I share with Melanie, the mother in
Daniel Isn't Talking
, that all parents of autistic children share. We all know the fear, the frustration, the tremendous, almost physical need to have a genuine reciprocal relationship with our child. There was a time not so long ago when my son did not look in my direction or answer to his own name. There was a time when each day was so exhausting I woke with dread. We have changed, he and I. He has grown into a playful and talkative ten-year-old boy; I now have years of experience in understanding him, and understanding autism. We are different people. When I look back at the 
young woman (me) who knew nothing about how to help a child with autism, desperately seeking advice from experts who only seemed to be able to describe autism, but not mitigate it, it is as though I am glimpsing a past life.

Writing the novel gave me an opportunity to examine this life. By writing about Melanie I was almost forced to meet myself – well, not me exactly, but a woman separate from myself and for whom I found it easier to have compassion. By creating an alter ego, by understanding how helpless she feels in the face of such a diagnosis, how incompetent and inadequate she considers herself, how ill-prepared for what is being asked of her, I was for the first time able to understand myself truly as I was then when Nicholas was diagnosed.

Like most mothers of children with special needs, I have run myself hard. I have seen myself as a vehicle for my child's progress, as the receptacle of my husband's sorrows and fears, as a conscript into a war that I cannot entirely understand. I have been terrified by diagnosing paediatricians, disregarded by education officers and government bureaucrats, cowed by egotistical psychologists, shamed by passers-by in supermarkets and public buildings. I have held back tears until I got to the car, clung to my son and wept, and sometimes in the middle of it all I've wished I could just run away.

Sometimes, too, people were wonderful to me. Not every doctor behaved badly, nor every school official. And when I'd had
enough and fell apart for a few minutes or a few hours, there were people – not least of whom my husband – who persuaded me to plough on.

Never during this time did I consider myself – by which I mean myself as a human being separate from my family – nor would it have been appropriate to do so. However, in writing the book I was able to visit Melanie and, in an extraordinary manner, meet myself as I was back then, with my little boy of three years, with my daughter just starting nursery school. I was able to care about Melanie, understand her thoughts, her motives, her expressions of grief and joy over her son, and in doing so I looked freshly at my own life and began to make sense of it all.

Of course, this is what novels do: make sense of our diverse, inelegant, astonishing lives, weave together the apparent disarray of events and people, and present to us anew a kind of truth about ourselves that does not involve facts so much as emotions and ideas. By writing about Melanie I was able to hide myself a little even while exposing everything of importance about myself. I was able to unveil private thoughts in the most public of arenas and express something that I suppose I was hoping to say all along in my real life but, between my son's therapy sessions and my own arguments with the local education authorities, I didn't have time.

Dying Young
Hilary has fallen in love, but with the wrong person. Victor, the object of her affections, is everything she could want in a man, handsome, funny, intelligent. The only problem is he has leukaemia and, having refused treatment for it, he's dying. Leimbach's first novel was made into a film of the same name, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Julia Roberts.

Sun Dial Street
When Sam returns home to California after four years away, he finds his little sister grown up and his mother still as manic as ever. But then Eli, a larger-than-life restaurant and strip-joint owner, comes onto the scene and disrupts Sam's new impressions of his little sister, and, when this newcomer is found dead, his peace of mind.

Love and Houses
Megan is seven months pregnant when her commitment-phobic husband decides he needs a little ‘break' from their marriage. A funny and informative novel about everything from, well, love to houses.

Falling Backwards
A haunting, lyrical account of a complex marriage between Rebecca and her husband, James, who suffers from manic depression.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-time
Mark Haddon

The Pursuit of Alice Thrift
Elinor Lipman

Innocence
Kathleen Tessaro

Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Kate Atkinson

Ollie: The True Story of a Brief and
Courageous Life
Stephen Venables

Send in the Idiots
Kamran Nazeer

The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Dean

www.martileimbach.com
Includes a biography, articles about writing and autism, information about forthcoming appearances as well as the author's blog and current favourite reads.

www.nas.org.uk
The National Autistic Society is a UK-based association which provides information about autism and Asperger's Syndrome and champions the rights of those diagnosed with either disorder. The website provides lots of information about the process of diagnosis and where and how to get help.

www.autismspeaks.org
This US charity (with a UK arm) raises awareness of autism and funds for research. Its website provides event news and information about getting involved.

www.treehouse.org.uk
The TreeHouse Trust is a London-based UK charity, established in 1997 to provide an educational centre of excellence for children with autism.

www.peach.org.uk
A parent-led UK charity established to promote early behavioural intervention, Applied Behavioural Analysis, for young children with autism.

www.rdiconnect.com
An organization that coaches parents to help their children with autism reach essential developmental milestones.

MARTI LEIMBACH
is the author of several novels, including the international bestseller,
Dying Young,
which was made into a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts. Born in Washington, DC, she now lives in England with her husband and two children. She teaches creative writing at Oxford University.

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Dying Young
Sun Dial Street
Love and Houses
Falling Backwards

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