I am not sure when or how this novel, now also a TV movie that I have not seen, came to my attention. A 15 year old Swindon boy with autism and some combination of ADHD, OCD, and a hint of paranoia, is a student at a special needs school, living with his widowed father. In his night wandering he finds his neighbour’s dog named Wellington dead on her lawn with a garden fork through its body. He undertakes a detective search to find the killer, disobeying his father’s specific orders. To him everything is related to the precision of mathematics, sciences, and linguistics, as he is limited to literal logical thinking but is a genius in those fields. As the narrator, dreaming of becoming an astronaut, he is very precise in his likes and dislikes. He has a photographic memory and an aversion to anything yellow or brown, explaining these quirks in detail.
With impeccable logic, he cites historical details and old literature provides quirky interpretations, including a superb explanation of the meaning of Occam’s razor. By chapter 137, (In keeping with his mathematical genius, the chapters are numbered by prime numbers up to 233 rather than sequentially.) the plot becomes very complex and unpredictable with his late discovery of multiple enigmatic long letters addressed from a London address (that he naturally commits to memory), to him from his supposedly deceased mother, dated long after she died, among other twists that I won’t divulge.
The Oxford author has an uncanny ability to characterize the mental processes of the autistic idiot savant genius with his need for ritualistic unvarying routines and for the difficulties encountered by those living with them, to the point that I suspect that he has had close experience with such an individual. The narrator of the audiobook totally nails the dialects and voices. Although there is a lot of foul language and shouting, this seems to fit with the uncouth characters doing the cursing and shouting. The writing in the first person singular is mostly in the typical short dialogue and observations of an idiot savant. Likewise, the unusual gestures of someone with autism and OCD such as head banking curling up on the floor, and aversion to any intimacy or touching are frequently described. It reminded me of the films The Rain Maker and Forest Gump.
I really, really enjoyed this read and devoured it in one day. I will recommend it to our book club.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Passionate Reader 