What the Hell Is the Matter with You?

There are lots of reasons to get hooked by a story, but anti-social mental illness and syndromes have their own appeal for me. I have come across several books recently that do a tremendous of job of telling a very interesting story through a narrator struggling with internal processes that trigger difficult public behaviors. Check them out, and don't forget to take your meds.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
One of the major achievements of this book is that its narrator is autistic and yet the reader is invited to develop very strong feelings for the people in his world -- feelings that the narrator himself can only guess at. We get to know a father, a mother, and a teacher who are trying to explain the complicated world to a young man who simply wants order, and to whom this life is no bigger a mystery than who killed the neighbor's dog. Figuring out both will require an adventure out into the chaotic world, and provides the reader with a challenging meditation on the bravery required to interact with the human race.

Motherless Brooklyn
Jonathan Lethem
Lionel Essrog has managed to raise himself among the fellow orphans of the Saint Vincent home in Brooklyn. He receives an education and a job from a neighborhood low-fi mobster turned self assigned big brother. But when this protector is murdered, Lionel sets off to find the one responsible. Are you ready for the challenge this character faces? Tourette's Syndrome! No, I'm not kidding! The reader is treated to the funny, interesting, lucid thoughts of the narrator, while he also gives a running commentary on his physical and verbal ticks -- when to expect them and what they are connected to, if anything. It's is kind of like being on a high speed sight-seeing tour of someone's mind. By the end of the story, you want everything for Lionel-- the mystery solved, the comfort he seeks, and even The Girl -- but, of course, it ain't that easy, and that's what makes the pages worth turning. Warning: story includes the funniest octopus joke ever recorded.

Not As Crazy As I Seem
George Harrar
Devon is a lot like other 15-year-olds. He is embarrassed by his parents. He is unnerved about starting in a new school in a new town. He is wondering about that girl who seems to keep sitting near him at lunch. And yet, Devon is different. He says the order of his classes, EnglishAlgebraBiolgyLunchFreePeiodGymClassicsDone,
like a mantra to calm himself. He must eat everything in fours or he will gag. And he breaks into the school with another kid to prove he can make a friend, but most importantly to straighten that poster in Biology that is crooked. Kids with Obsessive Complusive Disorder are not exactly the easiest to love, but Harrar is able to hook the reader into Devon's experience immediately and even inspire compassion for it. The narrator asks the worth-while question over and over, Why can't I just be different?