Monday, August 08, 2011

What the professor said

Stuart Murray, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Film at Leeds University is an expert on the representation of disability in popular culture, and is the author of Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Liverpool University Press, 2008), and  Autism (The Routledge Series Integrati)  to be published by Routledge this September.

I thought you might be interested to read what he has said about my new book -

“Writing about autism and Asperger's syndrome is notorious for the ways in which it frequently cannot resist the lure of the sensational and the spectacular. All too often the condition of autism, and individuals and characters with it, are turned into objects of belittling fascination for a reading audience, often as not more than performing sideshows. What is so refreshing about Sue Hepworth's - But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You - is that it avoids all these traps and rather presents Asperger's as a normal, if idiosyncratic, part of everyday life that elicits frustration, comedy and tenderness all at the same time. Hepworth's achievement in making the condition both distinctive and unspectacular, and weaving this into a narrative of romantic and family life, displays a genuinely subtle understanding of how autism - this most contemporary of conditions – works.”

3 comments:

galant said...

" ...contemporary condition"? That seems an unusal way of describing it ... surely autism and Asperger's has been around for a long time only perhaps gone unrecognized? But so glad this professor likes your book which, of course, is a cracking read.
Margaret P

Jean said...

Pleased to see you are getting recognition for this aspect of your book, I have sent a link to my daughter , Laura, who works with the Worth Valley Autism and Asperger Group, recommended your book as reading for family members.
Jean

Sue Hepworth said...

Thank you, Jean. That's really good of you.