Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits\u2014an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)\u2014had earned him the label \u201csocial deviant.\u201d No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.<\/p>\n
After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a \u201creal\u201d job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be \u201cnormal\u201d and do what he simply couldn\u2019t: communicate. It wasn\u2019t worth the paycheck.<\/p>\n
It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger\u2019s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself\u2014and the world.<\/p>\n
Look Me in the Eye<\/i>\u00a0is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger\u2019s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn\u2019t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as \u201cdefective,\u201d who could not avail himself of KISS\u2019s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people\u2019s given names (he calls his wife \u201cUnit Two\u201d). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents\u2014the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir\u00a0Running with Scissors<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, this is the story of Robison\u2019s journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner\u2014repairing his beloved high-end automobiles. It\u2019s a strange, sly, indelible account\u2014sometimes alien, yet always deeply human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[],"product_tag":[],"class_list":["post-4190","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n