Bad Animals: A Father's Accidental Education in Autism

Description: Joel Yanofsky tried for years to start this memoir. "It's not just going to be about autism," he told his wife, Cynthia. "It's going to be about parenthood and marriage, about hope and despair, and storytelling, too."
"Marriage?" Cynthia said. "What about marriage?"

A veteran book reviewer, Yanofsky has spent a lifetime immersed in literature (not to mention old movies and old jokes), which he calls shtick. This account of a year in the life of a family describes a father's struggle to enter his son's world, the world of autism, using the materials he knows best: self-help books, feel-good memoirs, literary classics from the Bible to Dr. Seuss, old movies, and, yes, shtick. Funny, wrenching, and unfailingly candid, Bad Animals is both an exploration of a baffling condition and a quirky love story told by a gifted writer.

Review Quotes: With self-deprecating humor and searinghonesty...Yanofsky reveals the painful frustration and the powerful bond oflove between him, his wife and their 11-year-old autistic son, Jonah. Aneloquent memoir... [Bad Animals] ... also addresses the broader issues involvedwith parenthood. --Kirkus Reviews