Twin: A Memoir

By: Allen Shawn

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: A heartbreaking yet deeply hopeful memoir about life as a twin in the face of autism. When Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would be diagnosed many years later as autism. Understanding Mary and making her life a happy one appeared to be impossible for the Shawns. At the age of eight, with almost no warning, her parents sent Mary to a residential treatment center. She never lived at home again. Fifty years later, as he probed the sources of his anxieties in Wish I Could Be There, Shawn realized that his fate was inextricably linked to his sister's, and that their natures were far from being different. Twin highlights the difficulties American families coping with autism faced in the 1950s. Shawn also examines the secrets and family dramas as his father, William, became editor of The New Yorker. Twin reconstructs a parallel narrative for the two siblings, who experienced such divergent fates yet shared talents and proclivities. Wrenching, honest, understated, and poetic, Twin is at heart about the mystery of being inextricably bonded to someone who can never be truly understood.

Book Quality:: Excellent
Book Size:: 232 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780670022373
Publisher:: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Date of Addition:: 10/17/11
Copyrighted By:: Allen Shawn
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Disability-Related, Biographies and Memoirs, Parenting and Family, Psychology, Education
Submitted By:: Deborah Kent Stein
Proofread By:: Tomoko Miles
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.