
Finally, 20 years ago, I gave up technology to start an automobile repair business. I worked on fire alarms and power supplies. I designed sound systems for more bands than I could count. My brother dropped out a few years later, following in my footsteps. I dropped out of school in 10th grade, and never looked back. At age 8, I got a little brother, and he was a misfit too. In fact, the bigger I got, the more misfit I became. I was born in rural Georgia, where my dad worked as a country preacher. Above all, you'll marvel at the way Robison overcame the restrictions of Asperger's to gain the connection he always as a husband and father. He also provides a fascinating angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents - the boy who would grow up to write Running with Scissors. A born storyteller, Robison takes us inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as defective and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people's given names (he calls his wife Unit Two). Look Me In The Eye is Robison's moving and blackly funny story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn't even exist. It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told Robison he had the form of autism called Asperger's syndrome, transforming the way Robison saw himself - and the world. Small wonder Robison gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on. No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent the evenings drinking. as heartfelt a memoir as one could find, utterly unspoiled, uninfluenced, and original.' - Augusten BurroughsĪ New York Times and Australian bestseller, Look Me In The Eye tells of a child's heartbreaking desperation to connect with others, and his struggle to pass as 'normal' - a struggle that would continue into adulthood.īy the time he was a teenager, John Elder Robison's odd habits - such as a tendency to obsessively dismantle radios and dig five-foot holes (and stick his little brother in them) - had earned him the label 'social deviant'.
