Boomer And Me: A Memoir Of Motherhood, And Asperger's

Description

Leo is having trouble fitting in. Whether it's pulling his pants down in the schoolyard or compulsively saluting Mazdas because the company sponsors his football team, Leo can never seem to say or do the right thing. And Jo is struggling to help him find his place as she juggles work and the ordinary demands of motherhood. But her beloved only child has been reading novels since he started school, amazes strangers with his encyclopaedic knowledge of sport statistics, and displays a wit sharp beyond his years - could he be gifted? In fact, it turns out Leo has Asperger's Syndrome. This is the bittersweet, blackly funny story of a boy and his very twenty-first-century family, and why being different isn't a disability - it just takes a bit of getting used to. Reflection reveals that Asperger's traits run in Leo's family; which prompts Jo to ponder the line between passion and obsession and ask the question: what the hell is 'normal' anyway?

Author description

Jo Case is a freelance writer and reviewer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and has been published in Best Australian Short Stories and Sleepers. She is editor of the Readings monthly, associate editor of Kill Your Darlings and books editor of The Big Issue. She is frequently on radio or panels at The Wheeler Centre and has been awarded a Rosebank Fellowship from the Victorian Writers Centre to work on this book