Another upside to spending endless amounts of time on the train: I get a lot more reading done than I ever would otherwise. As a non-fiction addict, though, it’s tough to choose from among the avalanche of memoirs that have come out over the past several years — trying to decide which ones are worth reading and which ones exist solely for publicity has left me thinking it may be time to retreat to fiction novels for a while.
I’m not ready to kick the memoir habit just yet, though, because I just picked up John Elder Robison’s memoir, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s, and I haven’t wanted to put it down since. You’re more likely to have heard of Robison’s younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, who has arguably been the patron saint of the memoir trend since Running with Scissors. While Robison’s debut is a whip-smart reflection on how he learned to live with Asperger’s before it was an accepted diagnosis, it also holds a mirror up to the outlandishly dysfunctional family dynamic Burroughs first made famous in Scissors, told from the perspective of a member who was able to escape a little sooner.
This may not sound like the stuff of summer reading material, but like his brother, Robison’s sense of absurdity makes for a story that is both moving and incredibly entertaining, not an easy balance to strike. An added bonus: he spent years on the road doing tech work for metal bands, so you’ll find out what it’s like to be a roadie for KISS. Really!
