The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime author

We often assume that the novels we read contain some element of autobiographical information. Especially for those of us who aren’t blessed with creative writing talent, it can be hard to imagine how others can craft stories that aren’t at least a little bit rooted in their real lives.

As we read this year’s One Book, One Philadelphia featured selection, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, one may be wondering if author Mark Haddon is like his narrator, Christopher—a unique figure often characterized (although not explicitly in the text) as having Asperger’s Syndrome—or if he knows someone like Christopher and was inspired to tell his story.

He does not. Christopher is purely an invention of his imagination.

He is also not an expert on Asperger’s or Autism, and did not do extensive research on these subjects. "Imagination always trumps research," he says. "I thought that if I could make Christopher real to me then he’d be real to readers. I gave him some rules to live by and some character traits and opinions, all of which I borrowed from people I know, none of whom would be labelled as having a disability."

So what did inspire him? Because this is a book that has equally touched both young and adult audiences, Haddon is often asked if he thought of such cross-over books as To Kill a Mockingbird or The Catcher in the Rye as models. No, he says—"the book most often in my mind was Pride and Prejudice."

On the surface, it can be hard to see how Jane Austen’s classic connects to Haddon’s modern work, other than they both take place in England. But in Austen’s work, Haddon saw characters "bound by iron rules about what they could do, where they could go and what they could say. … Yet Jane Austen writes about these humdrum lives with such empathy that they seem endlessly fascinating." And now we begin to see his depiction of Christopher.

"This was what I was trying to do in Curious Incident. To take a life that seemed horribly constrained, to write about it in the kind of book that the hero would read—a murder mystery—and hopefully show that if you viewed this life with sufficient imagination it would seem infinite."

He has written for both children and adults; with this book, he did both at the same time. So the language is simple and direct, but it goes well beyond the surface. And he aimed to write a book about more than a disability. He wanted to explore the magic of getting inside someone’s head who, from the outside, acts and is different from most.

In Haddon's mind, the message goes beyond embracing those with special needs. "It's about how little separates us from those we turn away from in the street. It's about how badly we communicate with one another. It's about accepting that every life is narrow and that our only escape from this is not to run away (to another country, another relationship, a slimmer, more confident self) but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves.”

**Check back every #OneBookWednesday during the Reading Period for some more One Book food-for-thought!**

Books whose characters have a unique voice are always intriguing. But getting into the brain of a character who truly processes the world in a novel way is a true treat. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is just such a book. Its main character, and the narrator of the book, is Christopher Boone, a 15 year old with autism.

Mark Haddon, the author of The Curious Incident, never lets Christopher stray from his unique interpretation of the world around him, which is what allows the readers to feel they are within his mind. Haddon teaches creative writing in England, but as a young man he worked with autistic individuals. He clearly illustrates his familiarity with an "autistic world view" in The Curious Incident.

At some points, the autistic world view can become disconcerting because audiences come to expect much more emotion in a good story. But this fact does not detract from the story, it enhances it. The reader is forced to give in to Christopher's logical and concrete way of looking at everything around him. The book's tone reminds one of Temple Grandin's autobiographical account of what it is like to process the world as an autistic individual.

From a disability image standpoint, The Curious Incident has power because the running undercurrent in the book is that it is less that Christopher's disability causes challenges, than it is the disabling environment in which he lives. This disabling environment includes a number of adults in his life who don't know how to deal with Christopher and his many unique requirements and rituals. (He only eats food of certain colors, for example). Also, the conflicts that begin to swirl in Christopher's family arise from the adults' frustration and lack of acceptance of the teen's differences. Mostly, Christopher himself manages his disability perfectly well through a set of strategic rituals such as doing complex math problems in his head. But his family causes his autistic symptoms to erupt through their own collective inability to cope.

Christopher calls the book a "murder mystery" as he sets out to discover who killed his neighbor's dog, Wellington. His single-minded, Sherlock-Holmes-style pursuit of the "killer" sets in motion a bigger mystery that affects his own life. And the book lives up to Christopher's characterization excellently; it is such a compelling mystery that one has difficulty putting the book down. But The Curious Incident functions as a coming-of-age story as well, one in which this teen with autism must confront his deepest fears to solve the larger mystery.

Another insightful aspect to the book concerns Christopher at his "special school," which he reluctantly tolerates. His true goal is take his A levels in math so he can one day pursue a career as an astronaut. In a wonderful deconstruction of the term "special needs," Christopher refuses to be lumped into any categories just because he is different.

All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though that is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters who wears a beige-coloured hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs (pp. 43-44).

Reading about Christopher's investigation of a world that calls him different is pure joy. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time also infuses much humor into the serious mystery Christopher is trying to solve. As a reader, Christopher's constant questioning causes one to take pause at, for example, the many metaphors that litter the English language, and when considered by someone with autism, they become quite ridiculous. What does "the apple of someone's eye" really mean? Christopher would ask what do apples and the human eye have to do with liking someone. And that's the fun of the book, considering how the habits and practices of non-disabled people can be interpreted as "weird or different," too.

Is the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

What is the author's purpose for writing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Does Mark Haddon have Asperger's syndrome?