Spoilers!
Being alive is challenging. Existing, being aware of existing, navigating existing, existing alongside others who are also trying to navigate existing. Imagining trying to exist when your brain fundamentally works differently in the way in which it is aware of its existence, how it navigates existing, and how it exists alongside others who also trying to navigate existing is nearly unfathomable. But Mark Haddon in his 2003 book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, tries to give us that insight through his 15-year-old main character, Christopher, who is on the autism spectrum. I suspect Haddon approximated it quite well on page 132 of the paperback by analogizing to Sherlock Holmes, a favorite character of Christopher’s for his deductions and “detecting”: … I had to detach my mind at will to a remarkable degree so that I did not notice how much it was hurting inside my head. Many of us can relate to this sense of needing to detach; we just do it differently than those with autism.
Haddon’s book, which is really Christopher’s book — Christopher is writing a book on the advice of his schoolteacher because Christopher likes projects — has a blunt opening. He finds a neighbor dog, Wellington, dead with a garden fork sticking out of it. He likes dogs and people who have dogs mean they are good people. Or at least, it’s another one of those approximations of goodness (I tend to agree!). Christopher decides his book will be a murder mystery because people like those, and so, he will be a detective and solve Wellington’s murder. Unfortunately for Christopher and his family, that begins an unfurling of deeply buried family secrets that reflect back upon him. or rather, those who ostensibly love him.
Wellington is Mrs. Shears’ dog, and Mrs. Shears is divorced from Mr. Shears. That’s what Christopher knows. What he doesn’t know is why. Christopher’s father tells him to stop poking his nose in other people’s business and to not going asking Mrs. Shears about anything. Ever the logical type — Christopher loves “maths” and physics and wants to be an astronaut — he doesn’t like expressions like that, and he seeks a logical way around it by asking a different neighbor about Mr. Shears. When Christopher’s father finds out about it, he’s cross (I love British terms like “cross”), and grabs Christopher roughly by the arm. Which prompts Christopher to hit him because he doesn’t like people touching him. At which Christopher’s brain essentially shuts down and goes into “groaning” mode when his memory and observations black out. Later, his father hides his book in his closet. Christopher does some detecting, finds the book, but also finds letters from his mother underneath the book. The problem with that is, to Christopher’s understanding from his father, she died two years previously from a heart attack. In other words, the letters are evidence she didn’t die. Instead, she explains in a letter, she fell in love with Mr. Shears and rationalized leaving with him as it being in the best interest of Christopher and his father. She wasn’t as patient as the father. She couldn’t handle Christopher.
That’s heavy! Because just as being alive and existing is hard, being a parent is fraught with all sorts of difficulties (from what I’ve been told and read). Now imagine parenting someone who doesn’t want you to hold their hand because they don’t like to be touched, will likely never express love to you (in a literal sense perhaps not, but Christopher and his parents have this cute thing of holding their hands up to each other), and they will scream and shutdown because they don’t like the colors yellow and brown. Special needs kids, well, require special attention that takes parenting, patience, and compassion to the next level. Christopher’s mother wasn’t up to it, and for his part, the father isn’t faring much better, given the way he’s talked to Christopher and physically harmed him.
When Christopher’s father learns he found the letters, he confesses not only to lying about the mother’s death, but that also in a fit of rage, he killed Wellington! Christopher is now scared to be around his father, afraid he’ll be murdered next. Because of the letters, though, he knows exactly where his mother lives in London. He decides he will go to her, and what follows is a harrowing journey to London, which wouldn’t necessarily take long at all for someone without autism. But for Christopher, who doesn’t like groups of people, strangers, loud noises, too much stimuli, unknown spaces and bathrooms, and so on, it takes a full day, a near-miss with an incoming train, and encounters with the police before he arrives at his mother’s doorstep. Mr. Shears is none too pleased, but she’s happy. Eventually, Mr. Shears can’t take it, and kicks them both out. They go back to the father’s house, where he tries to make amends. His way of making amends is to give Christopher a puppy, who Christopher names Sandy. That starts to right the ship (a phrase Christopher would find stupid), and Christopher envisions going on to fulfill his dreams of attending university, becoming a scientist, and maybe even an astronaut even though going into space is many miles further than London was.
Haddon’s book was lovely, earnest, heartbreaking, distressing, funny, insightful with its alien-in-a-human-world observations, and of course, deeply human in that bittersweet way that, as a reader, I both related to the lovely and to the distressing. Being a human is a wondrous and frightening notion in equal measure (Christopher might take issue with my math there). I’m thankful there exist people, parents, teachers, social workers, and others, who take a vested interest in being patient and loving to the Christophers of the world. This marks my fifth read of the year, so it’s still early, but Haddon’s book is my favorite read of the year thus far.
Milam's Musings 