Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Love Anthony

Love Anthony
by Lisa Genova
CD Shelves - Main Level - GENOVA

(Also available in print.)

I love everything that Lisa Genova writes.  She is a
Harvard-educated neuroscientist, and her novels all have neuroscience connections. Her first novel, Still Alice was about Alzheimers disease and her second novel, Left Neglected was about a neurological condition known as left neglect.

Love Anthony is about autism.  There are a few overlapping story lines, but the main characters are Olivia, who is the mother of a recently-deceased autistic boy named Anthony, Anthony himself, and Beth.  Beth is writing a novel about an autistic boy...named Anthony.  Beth does not know anything about the real Anthony, but the story she writes is uncanny.  The manuscript falls into Olivia's hands when Beth asks her to edit it.  (Olivia was a book editor in the past.)  Olivia swears it is her Anthony, telling his story through Beth.  Beth's own family consists of three healthy, beautiful daughters and a husband from whom she is separated.  Her life forms a side story that is very subtly tied to Olivia's.  Olivia is also separated from her husband.

Genova does a great job of describing autism.  No one can know exactly what it's like to be a person with autism, but the character of Anthony is very believable.  Genova describes what outsiders see when they look at him, but even more touchingly describes what Anthony thinks of the world around him and how he copes with its disorder and noise.

This is a great choice for book clubs.  It is also recommended as a read alike to authors like Jodi Picoult, Elin Hilderbrand, and Amy Hatvany.  Anyone with ties to autism, as well as anyone who wants to know more about autism, will find great satisfaction in this novel.

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