Seven novels that celebrate autistic voices

Casper Orr is a trans disabled writer and artist specializing in memoir, cultural and societal critique, and lyric essays. He’s a Senior Editor and Nonfiction Section Editor for Fruitslice and Managing Editor and contributor of Noise Made By living on the east coast. He has work published or forthcoming in Archer Magazine, t’ART Press, Querencia Press, and more.

At Electric Lit Orr tagged "seven novels [that] celebrate authentic autistic storytellers and their divergence from allistic archetypes." One title on the list:

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

Matt Haig’s most recent novel is what one may call a “feel good” philosophical work, but don’t let that categorization fool you; it is far from the dull theory taught in Philosophy 101. Much like his New York Times Bestseller, The Midnight Library, Haig interweaves philosophical quandaries throughout the book, but this time, it’s an active contemplation on grief. The narrative follows a middle aged woman named Christina who’s recently been widowed and has long been burdened by guilt after the death of her child. She tries to avoid grief around every corner, until a friend mysteriously dies and leaves Christina her house in her will.

The healing process isn’t linear, an idea that Haig fully dissects within the novel. While the beginning of The Life Impossible can neatly be defined as literary fiction, there is a drastic shift in tone and genre near the midway point, when the cause of the friend’s death begins to pose imminent danger to the island. By turning grief and loss into something magical and surreal, Haig creates an environment in which we can find purpose in our pain and make sense of the senseless.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Life Impossible is among Anna Montague's seven top novels featuring protagonists over 70.

--Marshal Zeringue