Exiting nirvana : a daughter's life with autism / Clara Claiborne Park ; foreword by Oliver Sacks.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Park, Clara Claiborne.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Park, Jessy, 1958-.

Park, Jessy.

Autistic people--Biography.

Autistic people.

Parents of autistic children.

Parents of autistic children--Biography.

Autistic children--Family relationships.

Autistic children.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 225 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Boston : Little, Brown, [2001]

Summary:

Oliver Sacks called The Siege: A Family's Journey into the World of an Autistic Child "one of the first personal accounts of autism, and still the best -- beautiful and intelligent." Now, in Exiting Nirvana, Clara Claiborne Park continues the story of her daughter Jessy. In this moving, eloquent memoir, we see Jessy's progressive journey out of her isolated "Nirvana" into the world we all share. It is an honest and captivating story of emergence, perseverance, and love.

Jessy Park, now an adult, still struggles with language, with hypersensitivities and obsessions, and with the social interactions that ordinary people take for granted but that she cannot understand. With the help of family, teachers, and friends, Jessy has achieved more than her parents could have hoped for. She has left behind the extraordinary repetitive calculations of her autism for the utilitarian tasks of determining her share of the grocery bill and balancing her checkbook. She has grown into an accomplished artist -- her astonishing paintings transfigure the ordinary world with the rainbow colors of Nirvana. More important, she has overcome her social handicaps enough to hold a job, becoming not a burden but a contributing, active member of her family and community.

Exiting Nirvana is a luminous, moving story about the making of a self and what it means to be human, an account Jessy's mother must tell for her, since she cannot tell it for herself. But most of all it is a remarkable story of growth, not only in Jessy but in everyone who has touched her and whom she has touched.

Contents:

1 Talking

2 "That is not sound" 21

3 "When the time comes" 34

4 "Guess what!" 53

2 Thinking

5 "All different kind of days" 65

6 "When I ten, that minus one!" 85

7 "The hangman hangs by the clothespin because of new politeness" 97

3 Painting

8 "The sky is purple-black" 119

4 Living

9 "Because can tell by the face" 139

10 "I guess Darth Vader learned from consequences! Like me!" 154

11 "Guess what! Some of the people at work are my friends!" 174

12 Valedictory 194

I. Jessy's Descriptions of Some of Her Paintings 209.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 216-218).

ISBN:

0316691178

OCLC:

44084051