Adventures in Darkness: Memoirs of an Eleven-Year-Old Blind Boy

Tom Sullivan has "seen" more in a lifetime of accomplishments than anybody I know (come on: how many folks do you know who've played Augusta, run the Marine Corps marathon, appeared on Carson, sold out Vegas, built a blessed family life ... you get the point). It's a breathtaking record that blows away the boundaries most of us assume apply to the lives of the blind or people with similar physical challenges. Adventures in Darkness is the story of seemingly smaller successes - it tells of his pivotal 11th summer, when Sullivan's fierce desire to experience life as a "normie" led him into a series of adventures that make for hilarious, uplifting and deeply affecting reading. Every child has felt alone, misunderstood and deeply conscious of not belonging. For most of us, it's a transitory part of growing up that hopefully leaves us with humility and empathy as character traits, and shallow enough scars that we're in no way disfigured. We know that the blind experience entirely another level of separation. We know, but with the mixture of embarrassment about our own good fortune and an unwillingness to delve into anything that might sadden us, too often we may hesitate to pick a story about someone who lives with a disability. So here's the good news about Adventures in Darkness: it's a tremendously fun read. Sullivan's tale will feel familiar to every reader, but it's his storyteller's artistry that has you racing through the book, connected to the common smells, milestones and challenges of growing up, and to the special sense of how indomitable this particular human spirit was and is. What separates Adventures in Darkness from the "up from the bootstraps" mainstream is that it is a good story, well told and from an unexpected perspective. Sullivan is blind; he will make you see. You'll see his deeply loving and disastrously damaged parents; and most of all, you'll see a real kid. Tom Sullivan, as a boy and as a man, has a crushing disability ... and he deals with it. With humor, without pretense, and acutely conscious of human limitations well beyond his blindness, Tom Sullivan makes us share his conviction that while he may have unusual talents and a frightening handicap, he is deeply connected to each of us. At 11, in the summer that propels him into Adventures in Darkness, Tom Sullivan learns that each of us is independent, dependent, and interdependent. We are defined by what we bring to the world and how we deal with others, and the sighted no less than the blind find ourselves depending on others. It's a lesson of a lifetime, and you'll seldom find it more convincingly or enjoyably brought home.