Each year on April 2nd marks World Autism Awareness Day. A day where we celebrate neurodiversity, amplify autistic voices, and promote understanding and awareness.
Representation and diversity in books is extremely important. Books featuring autistic characters—especially those written by autistic authors—help break stereotypes and highlight the diversity of experiences within the spectrum.
David Sharp, author of the captivating murder mystery, For All Your Endeavours, explores the challenges autistic individuals can face in work and in life through his protagonist DI Lancaster, whose different way of thinking is a valuable asset to the case.
David Sharp, says:
“Writing that heading, ‘World Autism Awareness Day’, makes me glad to be alive. I was born in 1953. When I was a child, in the 1950’s and 60’s, there was not, as far as I remember, any such thing at school as ‘Autism’. I was just a ‘naughty child’ with ‘too much energy’. ‘Too much to say’. ‘No control’. Who ‘needed to be tamed’.
If only I’d had a label back then, I once thought.
But in actual fact, since finally being diagnosed in the 1980’s (and that’s another story), I’ve realised that I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I could’ve done without some of the pain. The violence. The canings. The misunderstandings. The bullying and the frustration. But my particular strain of autism, Dyspraxia, has shaped me to become who I am. It’s various disabling intrusions into my growing-up, such as my inability to catch anything, the length of time it takes me to be able to do up buttons or laces, my inability to keep my mouth shut, even though I know what I’m about to say, may well get me into trouble, my aversion to any kind of group activity, and the list goes on. This has meant that over the years, I have had to find avoidance techniques to get around anything that means using those hated skills.
I have given the same autistic trait to my detective, who uses those same avoidance, and organisational techniques, as a way to help him solve crimes. Some people may say, ‘how does someone with autism, get a job like that?’ But, like me, many autistic people have a role to play in life’s rich tapestry. In my case, since being expelled from school at the age of fifteen, I have rarely had a day out of work, unless I wanted it. And for the last twenty years of my life, until my retirement two years ago, I ran community gardening projects. Working with various ‘volunteers’, all suffering from some kind of debilitating mental illness; Asperges, PTSD, ADHD and wide range of the autistic spectrum, from mild depression, right through to Acute Schizophrenia.
Some of these will never hold down a permanent job but all have a part to play in life.
Detective David Lancaster fits into that role. He is someone who has found his niche. Using his ‘weirdness’ to his advantage. Mocked because of his use of a huge white board, with plenty of room for lists, gradings, and reference points. A constantly shifting mess of names, places and times that only he can see the patterns of. He’s aided in this, as is so often the case in detective partnerships, by his sergeant, Marie Videt. She begins to understand his problem-solving systems and eventually forms a strong bond with her boss, which finally, turns to love. Proving that, as in real life, you should never read the persons label, but just give someone a fair chance, and help mould their space.
So, let’s hear three cheers for ‘World Autism Awareness Day’.
And three cheers for Cranthorpe Millner, for allowing an autistic author to get his book onto the shelves.”
