A Regular Guy Growing up with Autism: A Family's Story of Love and Acceptance, Vol. 1 by Laura Shumaker
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(Paperback)
- Pub. Date: September 2008
- 241pp
- Sales Rank: 39,359
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: September 2008
- Publisher: Landscape Pr
- Format: Paperback, 241pp
- Sales Rank: 39,359
- ISBN-13: 9780980183603
- ISBN: 098018360X
Synopsis
A Regular Guy: Growing Up With Autism is a memoir about life with an autistic son, Matthew, written from his mother s perspective. It answers the many questions that people have about autism through the story of Matthew's life spanning from babyhood to young adulthood. A Regular Guy illustrates the many ways in which family, friends and strangers are touched by Matthew's desperate desire to be a regular guy, and how his brutal honesty and social awkwardness bring out the best and worst in people in touching and humorous ways. In turn, A Regular Guy leads readers to love and accept Matthew, quirks and all, and inspires them to understand and tolerate the differences in others.
Customer Reviews
A Real Account Of An Autistic Teenager's Lifeby MissKrissy
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June 29, 2009: An inside look at what it's like to raise an autistic child. Brutally honest but loving. A family pulls and works and loves together to make the best life possible.
Mesmerizingby Alleven
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December 10, 2008:
A Regular Guy, Growing up With Autism is the story of a family into whose life comes Matthew, firstborn and autistic. With immense candor, the author tells the story through a series of anecdotes. The voice is that of his mother, author Laura Shumaker, who reveals her own agonizing path and channels every other member of the family. Two decades of mesmerizing turbulence roll by in this one-sitting read.
Shumaker writes so simply and directly that you could read the whole book without noticing what a good writer she is. But you will find yourself weeping with her and feeing the despair, terror, and the constant presence of autism as it crowds everything else out of their lives. They try for a dozen forms of cure and settle for mitigation that is often only imagined. They cope. They do the best they can and readers will surely wonder if they could have done as well. We are reminded that every commonplace event has the potential for tension and disaster. Imagine Matthew¿s first hard on, in church, during communion.
Frequently, Matthew¿s schoolmates pick on him and this sets up the most poignant moment of the book for me. After younger brother, Andy witnesses a particularly nasty scene, he says to his mother, ¿I¿ve been wondering if I would be mean like that if I did not have a brother like Matthew.¿
Matthew¿s meltdowns, sometime nearly daily, are the reason for the story. The story however, is about the people around Matthew and their struggle. Everyone in this loving, caring, compassionate family loses it at one time or another, sometimes more than one at the same time. Yet, someone rises and inspires the others to keep going. That is what families do. This story, more than anything else, is the story of family triumph.
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