Like Color to the Blind:: Soul Searching and Soul Finding - Hardcover

Williams, Donna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812926404 ISBN 13: 9780812926408

Publisher: Crown, 1996

Synopsis

The bestselling author of Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere offers an intimate diary of the universal joys and stresses of falling in lo ve as she continues her struggle with autism. "Donna Williams isn't just teaching us what it is like to be austistic. She is teaching us what it is like to be human."--Deborah Tannen, New York Times Book Review.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

ing author of Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere offers an intimate diary of the universal joys and stresses of falling in lo ve as she continues her struggle with autism. "Donna Williams isn't just teaching us what it is like to be austistic. She is teaching us what it is like to be human."--Deborah Tannen, New York Times Book Review.

Reviews

In her earlier, popular books (Nobody Nowhere; Somebody Somewhere), Australian-born Williams tracked the arduous journey by which she took control of her life after being diagnosed as autistic. Her emergence into the "vast fish tank called the world" was accompanied by often negative inner defenses, aspects of her personality to which she gives names. In her mid-20s, in England, she meets Ian, a similarly "high-functioning" autistic man. Their attempt to share life exposes them to a wider realm fraught with sudden changes and challenges. Williams, widely traveled and sought after by sufferers of the pervasive developmental disorder of autism, reveals how she coped with fragmented visual and auditory reception, the limitations of defensive security and the emotional challenge of finally "having a specialship with someone like myself." It comes as a surprise, then, to learn she is no longer married to Ian. With forward-looking elan, Williams indicates that her daunting trek to reconcile inner and outer worlds will take another turn.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The third revealing volume in an ongoing autobiographical series that is beginning to take on the breathtaking quality of a thriller: Will Donna Williams find her real self? Will she and Ian build a life together? Will she reunite with her family? Williams, diagnosed as autistic, began her chain of memoirs (Nobody Nowhere, 1992) by offering herself as Exhibit A in an exploration of what it is like to be a person with autistic symptoms. For instance, like many other ``high-functioning'' autistics, she was unable to express or even feel emotions like anger or affection, and only mimed acceptable social behavior. Frequently overwhelmed by sensation--light, sound, touch--she would become confused, immobilized, at the most inopportune times, such as when crossing a busy street. Somebody Somewhere (1994) followed her struggles to reengage with the ``real'' world. More and more able to control disruptive flights of consciousness and ritualistic behavior, Williams moved on to replace false selves with real feelings. In this new work she describes her relationship with Ian, someone ``like me,'' who became her friend and then her husband. Together they worked to peel away the masks they had created to hide themselves from the world. Living together in an English cottage, they developed a system of ``checking'' each other. Were the choices they made- -about, for instance, what to have for breakfast--true choices, or simply the fulfillment of images imposed by parents, or television, or an indefinable ``should''? Together they came closer to understanding the feelings that other people call ``love.'' Williams's gift for metaphor, and her ability to render experience and feeling with a compelling clarity, open her world to a group of readers much larger than just those interested in autism. Sadly, Donna and Ian part, but they shared ``the heaven and hell which is the stuff of growth and development.'' What comes next? Readers are likely to be waiting impatiently for volume four of this extraordinary narrative. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Continuing the story of her life begun in Nobody, Nowhere (LJ 9/92) and Somebody, Somewhere (LJ 2/1/94), Williams does an outstanding job of taking the reader into the mind of an intelligent, high-functioning autistic person and letting us see the thought processes that are taking place. With poignancy, she chronicles her evolving relationship and subsequent marriage to Ian, who is also autistic, their house hunting and eventual move, and the interviews and book tours that resulted from the publication of her second book. While the book is being marketed as a work on love and intimacy with universal appeal, this title will be most welcome as an inspirational and edifying work for parents, doctors, educators, and all people struggling with autism. For public and academic libraries.?Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Williams was not diagnosed with autism until she was 25. This third book about her life centers on her relationship with significant other Ian, who has Asperger's syndrome, a lower-grade version of autism. Describing herself and Ian early on as a "pair of coats with names," she tells, often in intensely moving terms, how they helped one another break out of their automatic and compulsive reactions. Battle by battle, they slowly defeated their defenses and the personations of their compulsions as they moved from friendship to sharing a house to "specialship" and, finally, marriage. House hunting in England and Wales gave them opportunities for intra-and interpersonal growth, and several overseas publicity tours found them exemplifying the meshing of their abilities and needs. Williams' account of the preparations for the wedding--the emotional adjustments, finding a church, buying clothes--is profoundly personal and may bring many readers to tears. William Beatty

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812926404
• ISBN 13: 9780812926408
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290