Mindblind (review)

Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel Clark is super-smart when it comes to anything that can be framed as a formula, but his Asperger's syndrome renders him much more comfortable cocooned in his own world than interacting with others. Nonetheless, he ventures out, if only to please his mother, and he has a small but intensely loyal cadre of neurotypical friends, with whom he plays in a band. That's not good enough for his father, though, who denies Nathaniel's Asperger's and tries to get him to do normal things, like go to a party for once. Unfortunately, once at the party, social discomfiture, anti-anxiety meds, and spiked punch prove a toxic cocktail, and Nathaniel subsequently retreats into a manic isolation that worries his mom, his friends, and his doctor as it mimics a full psychotic break. Eventually, though, he emerges from his retreat into his private realm of the mind ready to resume his project of using his massive intellect to do something important in the world and thus earn the designation of genius that people have tagged him with his entire life. Roy has achieved a near-perfect narrative voice for Nathaniel—appropriately self-conscious and witty in a sardonic way that displays both his social discomfort and his intellectualizing tendencies. His self-knowledge and awareness of the various dimensions of his disorder are credibly couched in language that he has picked up from books and then applied to his own circumstances in his hyperintelligent way. The responses of his two longtime best friends also pass the credibility test, as they have been schooled in Aspie tics since early childhood and yet still hold him accountable for unacceptable friendship behaviors such as avoidance and meanness. Mom is a bit on the sainted side, but for the most part, Nathaniel's is an affirming, warm-hearted, funny story about how to turn what could be a social liability into an Asp-kickin' advantage.