Look Me in the Eye - Noelle Fahrenkrug

Look me in the Eye Noelle Fahrenkrug

Look me in the Eye is a growing up tale through the lens of an “Aspergian” as he discovers societies unspoken, strong, and important norms. John Robison escorts us into a world of dysfunction and tribulations, increased by his inadequate understanding of himself, his inability to integrate into his community, and failure to form “normal” relationships, as he discovers what it really means to be “different”. Robinson introduces the advantages as well as the debilitating discrimination of being Autistic in an age where few are diagnosed and many, like himself, are alienated and even ridiculed for their symptoms. The novel brings to light the irony as well as the inequity of labels such as Autistic and delinquent, and introduces not only the effect on the child but the changes in a family structure and society as a whole.

As a child Robison is subjected to the discernment of his peers almost immediately, being unable to form the proper bonds and associating certain toys with certain actions he is incapable of seeing more than one path or use for each object, and instantaneously encounters societies shunning of the “strange” or “wrong” ironically placing the same view he has towards objects, on children, and the way they should act. John expresses feelings of being somewhat “defective”, because, even as a child, he recognizes his difference. Once John’s younger brother is born, whom he quickly names “Snort,” and later “Varmint” despite his mother’s resentment towards the nicknames, and begins to look for his brother’s “usefulness”, pushing him to walk and talk when he is not yet developmentally ready. At one point John smiles when he is told a classmate’s mother has died, defensively expressing his thought process that he was glad it wasn’t his own mother who died. Throughout all of these seemingly malevolent mistakes John is labeled