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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | 616.89820092 W | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Wayne Public Library | 616.89820092 W | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The bestselling author of Nobody Nowhere continues her searing, revelatory account of her battle of autism--a life dominated by disembodied pattern, sound, color, and movement, cut off from the incomprehensible actions of people. Donna explores the four years sinse her diagnosis and her attempts to leave her world under glass and live normally.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Nobody Nowhere , the author reported on her escape, after 25 years, from the hallucinatory prison of autism inhabited by her multiple personalities. The artistically gifted Williams continues to build a bridge between ``my'' world and ``the'' world in this detailed follow-up, weaving recently recovered memories into accounts of her ongoing daily life. In her native Australia, she began to teach children with special needs--autistics among them--in whom she relived her own earlier struggles. With exquisite sensitivity, she conveys her impressions of people and surroundings as might someone returning from an extended trip. Particularly moving is her newly claimed sense of inhabiting her own body, a connection which she describes as ``the first security in life, which had been missing.'' Travel abroad to publicize her book and meet with foreign publishers posed another challenge, which she met with courage. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A compelling continuation of Williams's determined struggle to break free from autism. Perhaps even more than her best-selling Nobody Nowhere (1992), this journal reveals the vision and courage of the author. It picks up where the earlier volume left off, with the completion of the first manuscript and its submission to a publisher. Then, Williams was heading back home from London to Australia, newly aware of a self. But with the bite of the apple of awareness, she was more emotionally vulnerable than ever, unprotected by the ritualistic noises and movements typical of autism and determined not to call on the false selves that helped her function in the world ``out there.'' With the help of an educational psychologist and a couple who began as her landlords and ended as loving counselors, and with the help also of colleagues and her students, she fought to move beyond the still detached world in which she lived. She had no comprehension of what other people were feeling, since she could not admit feeling herself. Sensitive to noise, bright lights and supersensitive to touch, she was sometimes overwhelmed by sensation, at which time the ``meaning dropped out of words.'' She heard, but did not comprehend, only hoping that a speaker's words would be stored somewhere in her memory so she could retrieve and understand them later. College, teaching, and a worldwide book tour added pressure, but Williams's amazing determination enabled her to break through bouts of the ``Big Black Nothingness''--a void of sensation and experience--to feel anger, pain, and pleasure. Descriptions of feelings at times take on the fuzzy terms of New Agespeak, but discovering as an adult what most of us experience from birth must overwhelm the power of metaphor. A poignant sequel to Williams's ongoing adventure, her experiences here more closely shadowing the emotional struggles of non-autistic adults.
Booklist Review
Williams is autistic and wrote her first book, Nobody Nowhere [BKL S 1 92], about her childhood filled with abuse and misery. In this second volume, she records her life as a published author and as a graduate student in education. She writes of how many classmates disbelieved her problems and thought she was looking for attention or putting on a show with her bewilderment by or extreme reactions to physical contact. The author's work with other autistic children offers a great deal of insight into how their comforting mechanisms can be simply incorporated into their care and education. Williams' experiences with autism are a wonder that will benefit those on both sides of this amazing condition. ~--Denise Perry Donavin
Library Journal Review
Williams follows up the best-selling Nobody Nowhere ( LJ 9/1/92), an account of life with autism, by discussing her recovery during the last four years. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
