This is a book by Kate Jacobs, and is being made into a movie starring Julia Roberts, though I think it's been delayed. Anyway, there is a twenty-something woman character called Darwin Chiu who seems almost certain to be an Aspie.
1. Had absolutely no friends until she met her boyfriend/partner and had no idea why--her mom said it was because they were jealous because she was too smart, but even she (Darwin) didn't believe that.
2. Doesn't seem to be able to talk even to him about anything important.
3. She joined the knitting club of the title as part of her thesis on women doing "outdated" crafts. When asking questions of the women in the group, she was very offensive without meaning to be--she really did feel these women were wasting their time, but if she were NT she would have hid her feelings in order to get more information for her thesis. Instead she nearly got thrown out of the group--if an employee of the yarn store that had the group hadn't realized she was a lonely person and persuaded the owner to go easy on her, she would have been thrown out.
4. Doesn't even have friends at graduate school, even though presumably they're all as smart as her. There was a scene where she tried to make conversation in the break room, and everyone blew her off. (She asked on woman she knew about her thesis, and was told "Darwin, I'm in here on a break!", then the woman just ignored her.
I'm only on page 83. I hope the author does actually say Darwin has AS. I certainly hope she doesn't try to attribute it to Darwin's being exceptionally smart, or trying to be a good girl and please her mother too much as was implied in one place, or being feminist or something. She doesn't fit in anywhere, she's got to be an Aspie.
19 Jul 2008, 2:43 pm
