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ASPERGER'S SYNDROME AND FICTION – AUTISTIC WORLDS AND THOSE WHO BUILD THEM by Ian Garbutt PHD BY PRACTICE University of Stirling July 2017 1 ABSTRACT Do tangible, testable links exist between the autistic spectrum and creativity? How would such links work from the perspective of an author with Asperger's Syndrome? To what degree would autism mould the author's work, and how would it affect writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic spectrum authors)? Do these links provide a tangible advantage? Can an Asperger's author successfully engage a non-Asperger's readership? Has Asperger's become fashionable in fiction and if so what are the benefits/consequences? Can an “extraterrestrial stranded without an orientation manual”1 communicate ideas in a meaningful way to non-autistics? Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high functioning autism where those affected express a range of social, behavioural and perceptual traits which have no actual bearing on their level of intelligence. As an author with Asperger's my intention is to examine the degree to which my autism affects my writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic) creatives. Asperger's sufferers lack empathy and social skills, therefore creating situations a reader can empathise with is challenging. To an Asperger's other people are 'aliens'. If the characters and scenarios in my work are coloured by my difference, then it may be the difference itself which provides the hook for the reader. To what extent do Asperger's authors need to 'pretend to be normal' in order to engage a neurotypical reader, or to make their work generally marketable? Is there an argument that they shouldn't even try? With increasing diagnosis and better understanding of the autistic spectrum, the Asperger's limited but intense range of interests and ability to focus without human distraction might link in to creative excellence that has an appeal far beyond the boundaries of the autistic spectrum. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether claims of autistic links to creativity are more than heresay. I examine alleged positive evidence for these links, and see how this evidence ties in with my experience both as an Asperger's and an author, with particular regard to my decisions in crafting my novel The Ghost Land. 1 Steve Silberman (2015) Neurotribes, London: Allen & Unwin (Pg 437). 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract:.....................................................................3 Practice Element – Novel – The Ghost Land:.......... 4 Reflexive Critical Essay:.......................................193 References.............................................................257 3 THE GHOST LAND CHAPTER ONE “You won't ever have kids, Miriam. They'd all be retards. I won't be grandfather to a monster.” This belief has been festering in the mind and heart of my father since he first discovered I'd wandered into the Ghost Land. It's not something most twenty six year old women would want to hear, and though he first said it more than a decade ago I remember it perfectly. The fact Dad has hardly changed probably helps. One Christmas I got him a new hat, wide-brimmed and hand stitched in stag leather. Dad turned it over in his hands, pecked my cheek and put the hat on the top shelf of his wardrobe, where it's stayed ever since. “I'm not trying to spite you, Miriam,” he explained once. “It's a fine hat, good for any job in any weather. I expect a man could even wear it in church but this,” he tapped the side of his old stetson, “I've kind of grown into it over the years. It's like a third hand. I can't just stop using such a thing, not after it's spent all those seasons keeping most of the weather off my face. I only take it off when I'm talking to the preacher.” In certain light, his face looks just as it did through all those gone-away years. But soon he'll be an old man. It isn't something that can be fixed like nailing a shingle back in place or putting a fresh coat of pitch on the yard fence. Now the grey threads are spreading over his scalp like some parasite, his knuckles are starting to crack with arthritis, and through the walls I hear his groans when getting in and out of bed. He isn't going to marry again, and I'll have no brothers and sisters. All I have is that place beyond the Fence. “Who knows what sort of shit you've been exposed to in there.” Arguing won't achieve anything. He goes through this mantra anytime he gets wind that I'm going back. I pluck the pan of stew off the stove and ladle the contents over two plates. Dad isn't much of a cook and what finishes up in his pot depends on what he's managed to shoot on the remnants of his land. He doesn't look too closely. “Rabbit again,” is a favourite joke. Sometimes he fetches vegetables from the market at the Outpost or trades for the fish Burt McAllister 4 hooks out of the creek. Dad calls what he serves up “honest food”. Often it tastes as grey as it looks but his belly never seems to complain. I take the plates through to the front room. Dad is sitting wrapped in his armchair, the TV burbling out news from its place on the side table. He's taken to mumbling under his breath when something isn't well in his world. Vietnam is getting worse and you'd think Russia had already dropped nukes on the White House. “Look at those protestors,” he says, waving at the screen. “What do they think this is, another Revolution?” I lay the plate on his lap and hand him a fork. “They feel lied to, Daddy.” “Lying to people is what politics is all about. Not one man under that Capitol dome can say they're any better. Can you imagine what a real mess this country would find itself in if people told the truth all the time?” He starts in on his stew knowing I won't bother contradicting him. We both eat in silence. He seems to like the strips of beef I brought over with me. When he's eaten everything but the gravy he jerks his fork at the ceiling. “You planning on staying upstairs tonight?” Dad is wise enough never to call the place I sleep in my 'bedroom'. It's nothing more than a base, a place I sometimes sleep, and we both know it. Mobiles have never tinkled from the ceiling and the white walls have never seen rock gods glowering out of dog eared posters. A bookcase would merely take up space. I have a bed, a dresser, and three shelves tacked beside my door on which I keep a few of my favourite sunglasses. On the top are the bright plastic stars, moon shapes and others I wore in childhood. Below are Aviator, Ray Bans and whatever happens to be flavour of the year. Many more are piled in a trunk in a cupboard below the stairs. About three hundred in all, though a good few are missing lenses or have the stalks broken off. Some were gifts I haven't the heart to throw out. Most people don't question the sunglasses thing. It's put down as an affectation, like someone who wears a woolly hat all the time, even indoors. "I bet she doesn't even take them off in the shower," old Mary Harem, who runs the liquor store at the far side of the Outpost, once joked. If she ever had to look me in the eye I reckon that big, batty old face of hers would dry right up. “You stare too long at people”, I was often told, or “You don't look at people when they talk 5 to you”. Everything I did was wrong. So I told people I wore sunglasses because I had sensitive eyes, but in truth I wore them so my eyes could do whatever they pleased without someone else's say so. In the same way Dad's junk Fence is his barrier between the Ghost Land and his world, those sunglasses are my barrier between my world and everything else. I clear the empty plates away and bring through coffee. Dad eyes my black clothing, the laced-up shitkicker boots and the pack I've leaned against the bottom of the hatstand. “When?” “This afternoon.” “I figured that's why you're not staying. You never came back to this county to see me. You came back because of the Ghost Land. It's been simmering in your blood since you walked out. That place ain't God's doing. It's neither test or tribulation, good or evil. The Ghost Land doesn't even know what those things are. It spooked up on us one night and is there for its own purposes.” “And what do you think those purposes might be?” “I don't know, do I? I'm a straight thinking man. I don't want my wits bedazzled by some fairground scare ride. It doesn't bother me and I won't trouble it. The Pilgrims are long gone from my patch of dirt. They're not coming back.” “Most of your farm's on that side of the boundary.” “And it can stay there. The Ghost Land is welcome to it. Out-of-town folk stopped buying my stock years ago.

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