A fascinating companion to the previous memoirs by this masterful storyteller.
The bestselling author shares his experience as a participant in a cutting-edge study of the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on the brains of people on the autism spectrum.
A team of Harvard neuroscientists hoped that stimulating the outer layer of the brain might induce it to rewire itself and increase its emotional IQ. Robison (Raising Cubby: A Father and Son's Adventures with Asperger's, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives, 2013, etc.) explains that those on the autism spectrum are not unemotional or uncaring but rather lack self-awareness and the ability to read and respond empathetically to the emotions of others. They miss cues such as tone of voice and facial expression. Because of this, their responses may be inappropriate. Robison relates how, despite his success in a number of fields, he was frustrated by his social disability, which hampered his social relationships. In his youth, he engineered sound and lighting systems for leading rock groups, and he went on to a corporate job designing electronic games. Currently, he owns a business restoring high-end automobiles. In the past decade, the author has also gained recognition as a writer and consultant on autism. For six months, Robison received TMS on a weekly basis. Before and after, he was tested at the lab and also discussed his experience of the treatment with the scientists. He had always loved music but in an abstract way; now, when listening, he felt intense emotions. The author writes movingly of how his response to other people developed a depth previously lacking, and his own responses became more expressive. Within this new mindset, his wife's chronic depression induced a painfully depressed feeling in him, and for the first time, he recognized subtle mockery from someone he thought to be a friend. Although his emotions flattened out somewhat after the sessions ended, he has experienced a lasting emotional sensitivity. He is optimistic about the direction of the research.
A fascinating companion to the previous memoirs by this masterful storyteller.Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9689-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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