Parallel Play

If you are an adult who grew up with undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome, you will relate to and appreciate this book. It pains me to see people bashing the book because they bought a memoir when they really wanted something else. For general information on Asperger Syndrome, read Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome." Tim Page's book is a memoir about a "twice-exceptional" boy growing up gifted and with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it very helpful as well as a good read. Another great memoir is "Look Me in the Eye" by John Elder Robison. Adults who HAVE Asperger's Syndrome and grew up without a diagnosis will benefit greatly from reading these first person accounts. Valerie Gaus's "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome" is also an excellent book for this population.

Mr. Page has once again produced a fully readable book, interesting and sincere, open and big-hearted. I wouldn't miss a thing he writes, having been a fan ever since he wrote the Dawn Powell biography--a work that actually changed my life.

I loved this book. I, too have Asperger's Syndrome and wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult (19 years old). However, unlike the author, I didn't struggle in school (with the execption of math) as far as grades go. I graduated from high school 1 class short of an honors diploma.

Imagine growing up with Asperger's syndrome, feeling that you are so unlike the other children, but without knowing the cause until you reach middle age. The author of this impressive memoir, Tim Page, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in the year 2000, when he was 46 years old. Writes the author with astonishing clarity: "Nevertheless, the diagnosis was one of those rare clinical confirmations met mostly with relief. Here, finally, was an objective explanation for some of my strengths and weaknesses, the simultaneous capacity for unbroken work and all-encompassing recall, linked inextricably to a driven, uncomfortable personality." Being singled out by elementary school teachers for expressing unusual thoughts and exhibiting unusual behavior can not but be a baffling and frustrating experience. And yet out of this painful experience has emerged this short but sparkling memoir that captivates and bounces with life because of the author's vigorous prose. The title of the book refers to his awareness, even as a child, that he did not think, behave, feel and act as the rest of humanity did. With an uncanny ability and clarity of thought, Mr. Page describes precisely how he felt: "At the age of fifty-three, I am left with the melancholy sensation that my life has been spent in a perpetual state of parallel play, alongside, but distinctly apart from, the rest of humanity." In a way he had the typical childhood of a boy born with Asperger's syndrome, but who hadn't been diagnosed of the syndrome in early childhood, and so he suffered the consequences: "And so, between the ages of seven and fifteen, I was given glucose-tolerance tests, anti-seizure medications, electroencephalograms, and an occasional Mogadon tablet to shut me down at night.", and he states, "My pervasive childhood memory is an excruciating awareness of my own strangeness." Written in prose remarkable for its astonishing precision, clarity and forthrightness, "Parallel Play" is bewitching, very humorous, and at times witty too, and a great joy to read.

The bare facts of Tim Page's professional life show that not only has he been tremendously successful, he's very decidedly followed his own path. His lifelong love of music led to employment as a radio show host, a platform that allowed him to interview many of his living heroes in the arts world. He won a Pulitzer Prize writing as the Washington Post's classical music critic, a job title he'd coveted since the age of three or four. When he discovered Dawn Powell, then a mainly forgotten author he found he loved, Page got most of her works back in print, edited books of her diaries and letters, and wrote a critically acclaimed biography. Page is now is a music and arts journalism professor at the University of Southern California, an especially impressive accomplishment since he dropped out of high school because it bored him so much he could not force himself pay attention, even when he stuck himself with pins in a futile effort to stay alert. While high school couldn't hold his interest, Page has had passions that have brought him attention since he was very young. His fascination with silent movies kept him busy writing, producing and filming his own shaky, black and white versions, using the neighborhood kids as his cast. "A Day with Timmy Page", a documentary about Page's movie making, shows Page as a talented, somewhat tyrannical, very young looking 13-year-old charging around shouting stage directions to his friends and yelling "Lights, action, camera!" While turning the neighborhood kids into movie stars and chasing his passions into adulthood have caused people to admire Page for "thinking outside the box.", Page confesses early in his newly released memoir Parallel Play that he has never had more than a shadowy, uneasy sense of what those "boxes" are. The boundaries of the boxes are invisible to him, he can't make out why other people think they are significant, and he's uncertain how to steer his life around or through them--leaving him with what he describes as an anxious, melancholy feeling that his entire life has been spent in "parallel play", next to but irrevocably separate from everyone else. At the age of 45 he was finally given a name for his condition--Asperger's syndrome. Aspperger's syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder, though Asperger's differs from conventional autism in that language and cognitive skills are not much compromised. People with Asperger's can be brilliant in their chosen fields, and if they are lucky their talents line up with skills that are considered valuable. Some of the traits "Aspies" can have include an abhorrence of changes in routine, the tendency to be easily over stimulated, a knack for being uncoordinated, the inability to effortlessly understand social cues like body language and tone of voice, and an inclination to develop obsessions they become extremely knowledgeable about that are often shared in long winded, one-sided conversations. Neurodiversity is a relatively new word for the