Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm reading the latest Stephen King novel "End of Watch" - the final book in the Mr Mercedes trilogy. There's a character in it called Holly who's obviously Autistic, but this isn't acknowledged and most people except for the main characters - who all love her obviously - can't understand her behaviour and treat her unkindly. Has anyone else read this book? I can't work out if the author is trying to get the reader to discover that this character is Autistic, and so give them an idea of what it's like to be "different"? Why would an author write an autistic character into a story and then not make it clear that is what they are?
Lermontov (whence my user name) was almost certainly Aspie (see A Hero of Our Time for its partly autobiographical 'superfluous person' anti-hero) and it contributed to the events leading to his death. (Problematic social skills in a culture with duelling is not a good combination).
My favourite fictional Aspie, as I've posted on another thread, is Claude, the young priest in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris. He's intellectually brilliant, interested in philosophy and early science (has his own lab!), but socially and sexually a walking disaster-zone, destroying himself and everyone he loves in the course of the book. I've loved him since I first encountered him in my teens: long before diagnosis, I think there's a kind of 'radar' that picks up on one's own kind.