Review: Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism

In his book, Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006) author Kamran Nazeer presents a detailed, concise, and often surprising account of what it is to be autistic.

The book does not take a clinical approach, nor does it read like a memoir. Nazeer writes from an insider's perspective, but his own autism is not the centerpiece.

In the early 1980's, Nazeer was a student in a school for autistic children. There were few students, and they were all quite young, kindergarten age and slightly older.

As an adult, Nazeer decided he would track down his former classmates and document their lives as they are now, as autistic adults.

Nazeer not only profiles the students featured in the book, he recreates, for the reader, their characters and perspectives.

What the author does not do is clinically analyze autism as a medical condition. Rather, Nazeer assesses the influence of autism on his former classmates lives, and how they have or have not integrated into society.

But there is more to the book than the documenting of adults with autism.

Nazeer weaves his finely honed perspective on the inner workings of an autistic mind into his profiles. One of his classmates, Andre, a computer scientist, uses puppets to aid him in his conversational interactions with others. As Nazeer talks about Andre's use of puppets he explains to the reader, "Striking up conversations with strangers is an autistic person's version of extreme sports."

Within the context of each classmate's profile, Nazeer presents aspects of life that challenge those with autism. With Andre, the reader is privy to the difficulties autistic people have with making conversation. With Randall, a bike courier, Nazeer explores relationships, the societal myth of autistics as geniuses, and the role autism plays in the creative process.

With Craig, a political speechwriter, Nazeer develops a friendship. Nazeer is a policy advisor for the British government; both he and Craig, then, are influenced by and influential in political realms. Within this profile, the author looks both inward and outward.

Nazeer analyzes the relationship between him and Craig, and the relationships each of them develop in their adult lives, both personal and professional.

It is from this former classmate, Craig, that Nazeer found his title. As students in the school for autistic children, Craig exhibited echolalia, the constant, disconnected use of a particular word or phrase. With Craig, he would exclaim, at inopportune moments, "Send in the idiots".

The last profile is of Elizabeth. Her profile is garnered from her parents. As a young adult, Elizabeth committed suicide. Nazeer tells her story gently, and exhibits a practiced empathy, both for Elizabeth and her parents.

Elizabeth "didn't get well." The progress of Nazeer and the others profiled to integrate, to live adult lives, is both uplifting and myth shattering. For those whose paths are thornier, Nazeer can only attempt to express empathy through his telling of Elizabeth's story.

Finally, Nazeer meets with his two former teachers. It is in this section that the author gives the reader a more intimate view of autism. Nazeer admits he cannot "properly access the feelings of others," and the reader comes to grasp the impact of learning strategies to cope with interpersonal relationships, how those with autism must learn how to read faces and body language.

Though far from a clinical study, the book, Send in the Idiots, develops for the reader a fuller understanding of autism as a developmental disorder and as a state of mind.

One needn't know someone with autism to benefit from reading this book, though it can be disquieting to discover that many of the coping strategies developed by those with autism so closely resemble those most of use in our everyday lives.