Book Review: In a Different Key

In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, by John Donvan and Caren Zucker

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In a Different Key is not an easy book. The prose is certainly clear enough, and it's not an overly difficult read- but it is an emotionally challenging one. There were several points where I had to put down the book for a while, and a couple others I even cried at. It's an intense read, especially the case studies. Donald Triplet, the first child ever diagnosed with autism, gets especial focus throughout the book.

The main focus of the book, at least in the first half, is the history of the autism diagnosis itself. It isn't until later in the book that the authors begin discussing autism's role in American society, for the simple reason that it really didn't have a role, due to a combination of it being both poorly known and somewhat swept under the rug.

Despite the controversial nature of many of the figures in autism's history, In a Different Key does an excellent job at not idolizing or demonizing any of them. The book attempts to present them as merely human- flawed and complicated, and sometimes even horrible. Some are, of course, much worse than others- Hans Asperger was recently revealed to be a Nazi collaborator who sent disabled children to their deaths quite knowingly. The authors never attempt to make his former supporters and admirers look foolish, though. There's no way they could have known about his secrets until quite recently.

The authors even give a fair-minded history of certain discredited theories of and solutions to autism- though in each case, they make it crystal clear that these are discredited ideas. This is most visible in the section about vaccines and autism. They gave those who got caught up in the early panic a fair shake, and didn't try to present them as fools. Once the link between them was disproved, however, the authors (both journalists themselves) made it very clear that they had little to no respect for journalists who treated it as though it were still an issue with two sides. As a science student and a student journalist, I have to applaud them for that.

A lot of the poignancy of this book for me comes from the fact that I'm a high-functioning autistic person (what was once referred to as Asperger's, before the Nazi revelations and its removal from the DSM), and much of it ran close to my experience before veering off into much worse territory. In a Different Key definitely made me very grateful that my life, even with all its difficulties, has gone as well as it has.

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As a science student and high-functioning autistic person, if any of you try to come at me with your "vaccines cause autism" shit, I am not going to be even remotely friendly about it.