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28th out of 67 books
—
66 voters
Boy Alone: A Brother's Memoir
by
Karl Taro Greenfeld (Goodreads Author)
Karl Taro Greenfeld knew from an early age that his little brother, Noah, was not like other children. He couldn't crawl, and he had trouble making eye contact or interacting with his family. As Noah grew older, his differences became even more pronounced--he was unable to communicate verbally, use the toilet, or tie his shoes, and despite his angelic demeanor, he often ha...more
Hardcover, 368 pages
Published
May 12th 2009
by Harper
(first published May 1st 2009)
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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What a sobering look at life with an autistic sibling. The perspective of a brother is unique, different than that of a parent. He is only now, as a father, learning what was different about the sibling relationship he had with his brother. Though book is primarily autobiographical, as in real life, a lot of the energy in the book is focused on Noah, rather than on Karl. I can see the parallel in reflection; as I read, I was not even aware that the main character in the book was, in fact, the au...more
Wow. Just...wow. I am telling anyone who is even slightly interested in this book: whatever you think this book is, it is NOT. I feel this book will attract people interested in triumphing-over-the-odds memoirs, or Jenny McCarthy acolytes, and you will all be confused and disappointed. So whatever preconceived notion you have, forget it now.
I can't really say much more about this book without spoiling one of its bigger sucker punches. What I can say is that that writing is amazing--precise, con...more
I can't really say much more about this book without spoiling one of its bigger sucker punches. What I can say is that that writing is amazing--precise, con...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This started kind of slowly, but it sucked me in. By the time I got to the last part of it, I couldn't put it down. The author says that this book started out to be a general book about autism, and it shows. Occasionally the author lapses into long passages about autism, that don't seem to quite fit with the story of two brothers.
Honest, both in his telling of the story and in his dealing with the deeper questions of his life with his brother.
So, untimately, the theme of this book is: "Am I my...more
Honest, both in his telling of the story and in his dealing with the deeper questions of his life with his brother.
So, untimately, the theme of this book is: "Am I my...more
Greenfeld has written a powerful, maddening book, pitting sentences that are a joy to read against a raw honesty that is almost impossible to accept. It is a work of philosophy as endurance contest. The story of his profoundly autistic younger brother, Noah, is a descent by degrees, the deterioration of a child who begins with all the ordinary promise of his big brother but then slides irrevocably to become a mute and sometimes violent and possibly insane adult.
In the burgeoning field of works o...more
In the burgeoning field of works o...more
I won't give away any spoilers, but let me just say this: DO NOT, under any circumstances, read this in public. Like, say, on an airplane. There's a very interesting and well-done twist that very much caught me off-guard, and when I realized what it was, I put the book back into my bag and informed the beau, "DO NOT let me finish this in public. If you see me pulling it out again, punch me in the face." So I finished it in a hotel room in Mexico. Most depressing book ever for a vacation, but sti...more
Karl Greenfeld has written a hard-to-put-down memoir of growing up with a (famous) autistic brother. Readers who know the book A Child Called Noah from the 1970s will know one side of Greenfeld's story already: his father's memoir of raising Noah, Karl's brother. Now Karl tells the family story from his point of view. One thing that Karl emphasizes is that to a young child, "what is, is." Karl did not have any other brother to compare Noah with. Of course, with age comes awareness. Karl Greenfel...more
Boy Alone: A Brother’s Memoir, is, well, a memoir about growing up with a severely autistic brother, who happens to be the most famous autistic kid in America, at least in the 1970s. The author’s dad, Josh Greenfeld, wrote three books about living with and exploring treatment options for an autistic child. There were appearances on the Today show and 60 Minutes, and articles in Time. Karl Greenfeld, the author, writes about growing up against the backdrop of his parents’ focus on his younger bro...more
The author's father (Josh Greenfeld) wrote books and a series of magazine articles about his autistic son in the early '70's - A Child Called Noah - Karl Taro Greenfeld is Noah's brother.
Having worked with autistic children, I found this book to be an insight I'll never know. Greenfeld is very honest about his feelings for his brother and about himself - a drug user and petty theif.
The education of Noah is a history of the education of autistic kids.
***Spoiler***
I didn't like Greenfled's fant...more
Having worked with autistic children, I found this book to be an insight I'll never know. Greenfeld is very honest about his feelings for his brother and about himself - a drug user and petty theif.
The education of Noah is a history of the education of autistic kids.
***Spoiler***
I didn't like Greenfled's fant...more
I reviewed this book on Amazon when it first came out. At that time, I gave it four stars because the writing was very good and the story was one that needed to be told. However, the author delivers a sucker punch to readers that I think would be particularly painful to families of children newly diagnosed with autism. These families are quite dear to my heart. I thought at the time that I'd eventually come to see his justifications for that literary trick, but three years later, I still don't b...more
Aug 08, 2011
Charlotte
added it
This memoir serves two important purposes--it provides the neurotypical child's experience of growing up (and older) with a profoundly autistic, nonverbal sibling, and it offers a chilling glimpse of how autism was diagnosed and handled in the early days of applied behavioral science. It's obviously not a casual read, but for those who who have an interest I think it's extremely valuable. There's a zinger towards the end (I won't divulge it) that had me feeling cheated after I read the entire bo...more
A superb, painfully honest account of growing up the sibling of a severely autistic child. Karl Taro Greenfeld's life and sense of identity were going to be complicated anyway, as he was the son of a Japanese artist mother and Jewish American writer father. But those complications were infinitely compounded by growing up in the shadow of his younger brother Noah, probably the best-known autistic child in America at that time (due to three books published by father Josh Greenfeld). Karl's searing...more
I had a hard time with this one, but am glad I read it. A group of nurses were reading it at a conference I attended, and I thought it sounded good.
Overall, the subject matter of growing up with an autistic brother in the 60's and 70's was clearly addressed and I did empathize with his parents and the family as a whole. The review of child development and psychology was also interesting, but read very much like a text book.
It easily could have been 100 pages shorter and still got the story and p...more
Overall, the subject matter of growing up with an autistic brother in the 60's and 70's was clearly addressed and I did empathize with his parents and the family as a whole. The review of child development and psychology was also interesting, but read very much like a text book.
It easily could have been 100 pages shorter and still got the story and p...more
I read this book in one day; it was almost impossible to put down. Written with an almost brutal honesty, one comes away not liking the author, Karl Greenfeld, that much, but then feeling guilty for being judgemental. Who is to say how we'd feel if we had walked in his shoes? Greenfeld dares to express the emotions that many people have when taking care of someone who-is-just-not-going-to-get-better, and shows how denial and fantasy can serve as protective buffers by making the reader actually l...more
Heartbreaking, fascinating, and compulsively readable. Noah's story traces the history of "therapy" for autism in American in all its ludicrous glory -- Bettelheim's blame-in-on-the-mother theory; the early behaviorists' hit-them-and-make-them-behave, and finally, just warehouse them. But Noah is a person and his brother makes us see that. Noah becomes real and we care about him. As a special needs mom, I will never forget certain passages in this book. Greenfeld really gets what it's like to pa...more
I definitely like the way he writes. I think he can express the perspective from a child's point of view and also that of a brother easily. The transmission from that to the view of a grown up is also clearly noted.
His writing style is what I enjoyed through out the whole book. It is clear, precise, sharp-accurate to the point in conveying his thoughts, emotions and feelings which gives anyone a clear picture of what the author went through.
The emotions the author describes are raw, real and h...more
His writing style is what I enjoyed through out the whole book. It is clear, precise, sharp-accurate to the point in conveying his thoughts, emotions and feelings which gives anyone a clear picture of what the author went through.
The emotions the author describes are raw, real and h...more
This book broke my heart. I read the books about Noah when I was in high school and wondered what happened when he grew up. This tells you the story from his brother's point of view and then there is sort of a twist before you get to the latter part story. That way of writing about it was interesting but made the rest of the story more of a gut punch. Karl Taro Greenfeld's writing style is honest, much like his father's was about the same subject...and that makes it hard to read.
Difficult childhoods aren't all alike. Sometimes it is an alcoholic, poverty stricken or mentally ill parent. In this case, severely autistic Noah, takes up all of the anxious parents' time and attention, putting the older brother Karl on a seesaw of emotion, and at times guilt for being "normal". Karl's father is Jewish, his mother Japanese. Every decision is made for Noah's well-being, including a move to Southern California. Karl's father writes about Noah in life Magazine, which was interest...more
I didn't really like this book, I felt like it was really boring and not my type of book. I expected something more exciting? Karl's younger brother had autism and wasn't able to speak which made it hard for his family to give Karl attention. I would recommend this book to someone who feels the same as Karl or a person who is older and can understand how Karl and his younger brother felt.
This book is incredibly well written and an eye opener about autism and what it's like to have an autistic sibling. The author also writes about the nature of family and how family's respond to a "crucible." I didn't like the part of it where I felt manipulated. You'll have to read it to see...Otherwise I would have given it a higher rating. His lies to me, the reader, fit with his lying, deceitful self in the book.
Every parent or adult sibling of an autistic person should read this book. Anyone who enjoys brave, raw, honest memoirs should read this book. Greenfeld voices some of autism's dirty little secrets and, though he doesn't really have any answers, it's time someone asked these questions.
Yikes. I read this whole book in one very hot afternoon, and I think it's going to stay with me for a while. It's searingly honest -- I've been trying to think of a word to describe a memoir that's the opposite of "sugar-coated" (raw? flayed?) -- and very well written.
A rare memoir that portrays autism with total honesty, even the most hopeless and despairing moments. The writing is - at times - a little bit self-indulgent, but the content is so profound that my mild stylistic disapproval can be overlooked.
How does a family survive with a severely autistic child? What happens to the "normal" brother when everything centers around the "abnormal" one? This book is alternately fascinating, brutally honest, disturbing, sobering. 3 1/2 stars.
I picked up this book after hearing Karl Greenfeld in an interview on NPR. I was fascinated by the idea because most memoirs of families with disabled members focus only on triumph over adversity and while hope of truimph is necessary, focusing only on the positive aspects negates some of the feelings that caregivers and families of the disabled have every day. Greenfeld is open and honest about his feelings growing up with Noah and the effects it had on his family. Without spoiling anything, I...more
I loved this book. It is written by a brother of a child with autism, and pulls from his experiences as well as his families journals/thoughts growing up. I've read many psychological memoirs, and this one was one of the best!
I thought this book was excellent; l learned so much about early autism diagnoses and treatments. To read about the struggle this family faced was hard. I found the book's last third hard to put down.
i have read all of josh greenfled's books about Noah. This is Karl's book about growing up as Noah's brother. with commentary about treatment for autism both as it was for Noah and how it continues today.
Read it for a class, I was very interested in the sibling perspective of autism, he wrote it as an adult of all stories from the past, he has a very negative opinion but has come to terms with it
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I'm the author of six books, including the recent novel Triburbia, the story collection NowTrends, the memoir Boy Alone and the Japanese youth culture collection Speed Tribes
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