Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

Ever since he was small John Robison had longed to connect with other people but by the time he was a teenager his odd habitsan inclination to blurt out non sequiturs avoid eye contact dismantle radios and dig five-foot holes and stick his younger brother in themhad earned him the label social deviant No guidance came from his mother who conversed with light fixtures or his father who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry It was no wonder he gravitated to machines which could at least be counted onAfter fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars Later he drifted into a real job as an engineer for a major toy company But the higher Robison rose in the company the more he had to pretend to be normal and do what he simply couldnt communicate It wasnt worth the paycheckIt was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Aspergers syndrome That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himselfand the worldLook Me in the Eye is the moving darkly funny story of growing up with Aspergers at a time when the diagnosis simply didnt exist A born storyteller Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as defective who could not avail himself of KISSs endless supply of groupies and who still has a peculiar aversion to using peoples given names he calls his wife Unit Two He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parentsthe boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with ScissorsUltimately this is the story of Robisons journey from his world into ours and his new life as a husband father and successful small business ownerrepairing his beloved high-end automobiles Its a strange sly indelible accountsometimes alien yet always deeply humanFrom the Hardcover edition.