SMBD answers “I have heard that Mark Haddon does not...”

Sarah asked this question about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time:

I have heard that Mark Haddon does not have any experience with ASD. Is this true?

SMBD Yes, indeed, he has no experience with it, in fact, he admitted to not having read more than a few articled about it, articles written by parents and/…moreYes, indeed, he has no experience with it, in fact, he admitted to not having read more than a few articled about it, articles written by parents and/or "professionals", not by autistic people.

Generally most autistic people despise it, there seem to be a handful that do like it somewhat, but it's not entirely unlikely that they simply interpreted in a lot between the lines.

To quote a live interview transcribed on Wikipedia:
"I have to say honestly that I did more research about the London Underground and the inside of Swindon Railway Station, where some of the novel takes place, than I did about Asperger's syndrome. I gave him kind of nine or 10 rules that he would live his life by, and then I didn't read any more about Asperger's because I think there is no typical person who has Asperger's syndrome, and they're as large and diverse a group of people as any other group in society. And the important thing is that I did a lot of imagining, that I did a lot of putting myself into his shoes in trying to make him come alive as a human being rather than getting him right, whatever that might mean."

Now, any writer should know that this is a terrible approach, especially when writing minority groups that are very different from yourself. As such his failure is predictable, what's truly tragic is that this is being spread as some sort of guidebook on autism, something that it's decidedly not.(less)

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

by Mark Haddon

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