So I just finished reading The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. Warning: if you have not yet read this book, this blog post contains spoilers. For the background, this book is set in a society not all that far in the future, in which all genetic defects are cured either before birth or in infancy. The main character is a man named Lou Arrendale, an adult autistic who was born too soon to benefit from the "cure" and lives independently, working in a supported environment.
The main conflict in the story is that some researchers appear to have come up with a way to "cure" adult autistics and make them nonautistic - at least it worked in primate studies. But Lou's boss, resentful of the special support granted to his autistic employees (claiming it isn't cost-effective, even though most of the supports don't actually cost that much and are already paid for), threatens to effectively fire them if they don't volunteer for this experimental treatment to cure autism. (Lou has a group of autistic friends who work in the same place and they all hang out together and receive therapy at the Center.) Lou feels he cannot make a decision about this unless he understands exactly how the treatment works, which would entail an understanding of the human brain's inner workings, which he was told he lacked the mental capacity to understand. Eventually, with the encouragement of his fencing coach, he starts reading biochemistry and neurology books and finds he can understand them quite easily, which confuses him a bit as he was always told his brain was "broken" or "defective". The book strongly hints that he in fact is brilliant and has an extremely high IQ. During this process, he learns, much to his surprise, that his brain works the same way a normal brain does in most aspects, and is not entirely "wrong" at all - just a little slow in some regards. He learns about the sensory integration systems and those sorts of things. He also suspects that the research has a more sinister motive: giving a "normal" person some traits of autism to achieve better productivity in the workforce.
Eventually, Lou's boss gets called out for ethical violations (no surprise, SO glad it was still against the law in that society!) and the autistic employees of the company are still allowed to take part in the research study if they want to, but it is completely voluntary, and they won't be fired if they choose not to. Their are mixed feelings among the group of autists. One man wants the "cure", a woman steadfastly refuses. All of them wonder if in becoming nonautistic, they would cease to be themselves. There is no way to reverse the operation. Eventually (and very much to my surprise), Lou decides to take the plunge. From there, once he walks into the research lab to have the operation, the next chapter begins. At first it reads a bit like Flowers for Algernon in that Lou's thoughts are extremely simplified. He remembers nothing from his old life, but becomes more mentally capable each day as his neurons are reprogrammed. The doctors declare the operation successful, because even though his mind appears to be starting over from infancy, he is learning more each day and enjoys social interaction. His friend and fencing coach, Tom, who didn't want him to have the treatment, comes to visit and is horrified that Lou no longer recognizes him, and sad that his mental capacity seems that much lower. The doctors say horrible things, that the operation is a "complete success" and "even if he never regains his old memories he'll be no worse off than a brain injury patient, and will be fine as soon as he learns basic life skills again" and "if his IQ drops by 10 or 20 points he'll still be able to live independently, and at least he won't be autistic". They steadfastly denied that he was a genius. Eventually Lou regains his old memories and his mental ability. He has a breakthrough in which he begins to perceive his old, autistic self as an alternate self, or a voice in his head. He goes on to go back to college to study astronomy and astrophysics, with the dream of going into space. He expressed this wish prior to the treatment.
This was an extremely thought-provoking book. It made me think of all the ways in which the autistics were constantly made to feel inferior, "less than", despite the simple fact that they were able to do certain kinds of work better than neurotypicals. I also think the autistic main character was rather positively portrayed compared to some other autistic characters in other books which in the opinions of many, were portrayed poorly and gave a stereotypical view of autism. I liked how Lou went to church on Sundays and believed in God, because it seems that in a disproportionate number of books portraying autism, a lot of autistic people are atheists. I do not think that is an accurate reflection of the faith of the general autistic population.
I highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it will make you think hard. Also, there are a lot of details in the book which I left out in my brief description, so it's still worth reading even though I gave away the plot!
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