Book #5: Danny's People by Virginia Bovell
Danny's People: A Memoir and Manifesto About Autism by Virginia Bovell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The eponymous Danny is the now adult son of the book's writer Virginia Bovell and well-known author Nick Hornby. Danny is severely autistic to the point that he is non-verbal, and needs constant care.
His mother's memoir about bringing him up tells all about how he received his autism diagnosis, and about the levels of support that he received as he grew up. Reading this, I found it at times very touching, and at other times very upsetting.
Quite late on in the book is an account of a time that Danny spent in hospital because of problems with his digestive system, and charts all of his mother's feelings throughout the process. It was this incident that made her realise that her son could not cope with solid food, meaning that he is now supported by a liquid diet.
As someone who has been diagnosed with asperger's myself, I found it quite compelling to read a book about how autism manifests it in people. The book also goes into depths about the number of ways in which the healthcare system lets down people with autism.
I noticed that Bovell is particularly angry at the idea that some people think people can be "cured" of autism, and I agree with her argument that it isn't a bad thing that should be cured in any way. As she notes, some autistic people have said that taking away their autism effectively takes away who they are as a person.
At times, the sections about how autistic people are constantly being let down felt almost like soapboxing, but at the same time this felt like a really important book that needed to be written. More disturbing are the implications that parents might choose to terminate a pregnancy in the future if they found out their child had a disability. I'm all in favour of women being able to choose to have an abortion, but I'd definitely join Virginia Bovell in questioning a choice to do this if it was to avoid having to raise a child with a learning disability.
As I read this book, I could tell how much the author loves her son, and would recommend it to anyone to read.
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