Notes From A Literal Life by Elaine Eveleigh is published by Chipmunka Publishing
Released on: September 9, 2008, 12:38 pm
Press Release Author: Elaine Eveleigh (author)
Industry: Entertainment
Press Release Summary: This is the true story of bringing up our autistic son, Guy.
Press Release Body: About the Author:
Elaine has been writing for a long time, mostly narrative poetry and short stories. Her stories have been published in Punch, a famous, but now extinct magazine and broadcast on Radio 3. More recently she had tried her hand at playwriting and had amateur productions performed at local venues. She has lived all her life, 66 years, on a hill in Somerset but only three miles from Bristol City.
About the book:
This is the true story of bringing up our autistic son, Guy. It has been a long story. Charlie, Guy’s father, and I started out aged just twenty in 1961. And if I was going to bring up a baby with learning and behavioural disabilities that weren’t immediately apparent and didn’t qualify for kick-starting any professional help, I may not have started from there. However, there are worse scenarios and this isn’t a misery memoir. We were young, healthy and reasonably intelligent just not expecting the Spanish Inquisition without an interpreter. The baby years of wondering what we were doing wrong turned into not wanting to admit the failure to conform was more Guy’s fault than ours. A genetic difference that wasn’t going to be solved by a timely medical or methodical adjustment. It was us who had to adjust to him and try and bring family and friends along with us. More a change of attitude and expectations. He didn’t do what it said on the tin. Once we’d got over the shock of intellectual failure we had to face up to the social minefield, back then “Mentally handicapped” carried more of stigma. One size rarely fits all however, and we battled with education authorities, doctors, family and friends, bus drivers, shop keepers and barmen as Guy made his way through life variously out of step. Though it is the life of Guy it also our life and the life of the times, nearly five decades when more things have happened to the world than to us. The story hasn’t ended yet but people are better informed and more accepting of difference, or accepting in a more structured way. Charlie, Guy and I too are older and wiser and we all understand each other a lot better. It has been a bit of an obstacle course but as another generation overtakes Guy we no longer think we’re travelling in the slow lane nor have any intention of trying to keep up. Rather that Guy hears a different drummer and we’ve picked up the beat.
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Notes From A Literal Life can be ordered from Chipmunka Publishing at:
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