From the reviews of Daniel Isn’t Talking:
‘A beautifully crafted and immensely touching novel that also depicts the dramatic effects autism can exert on the dynamics of the family’
ADAM FEINSTEIN, Guardian
‘Heartfelt, realistic and informative … Leimbach vividly portrays both overwhelming maternal love and the ins and outs of autism … Thought-provoking writing’
Sunday Times
‘One of the most enchanting and gripping books of the year … Managing to be darkly funny and touching by turns, Leimbach knows how to engage her readers completely, producing a narrative that has an almost filmic quality … From the first page you share in [Melanie’s] fears for Daniel, relish her small victories, and hold your breath when it looks as if she might find romance again. An outstanding novel’
Daily Mail
‘A voice of real authority … sharp and funny … The description of Daniel is raw and compelling’
Independent
‘An unflinching account of the exasperation of raising an autistic child; incredibly, Marti Leim bach manages to find hope’
LIONEL SHRIVER, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin
‘Marti Leimbach’s terrific novel manages to be both realistic and upbeat about a difficult subject and is shot through with wonderful moments of humour’
KATE LONG, author of The Bad Mother’s Handbook
‘[A] tender, involving tale of a family in crisis’
Woman & Home
‘Compelling’
Vogue
‘Leimbach is a writer who depicts matters of the heart vividly …Very readable and extremely moving’
Easy Living
‘A love story that delves beyond the parameters of disability and into human nature itself. An intense read, lightened by some great moments of dark humour’
Belfast Telegraph
‘Beautifully written and refreshingly unsentimental, Daniel Isn’t Talking is moving and totally engrossing’
Irish Examiner
MARTI LEIMBACH
Daniel Isn’t Talking
A NOVEL
Daniel Isn’t Talking
Contents
Review Title Page Daniel Isn't Talking Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author By The Same Author Copyright About the Publisher
My husband saw me at a party and decided he wanted to marry me. That is what he says. I was doing an impression of myself on the back of a motorcycle with my university sweetheart, a young man who loved T. S. Eliot and Harley-Davidsons, and who told me to hang on to him as we swept down Storrow Drive in Boston, the winter wind cutting through our clothes like glass. If I allow myself, I can still remember exactly the warm smell of his leather jacket, how I clung to him, and how in my fear and discomfort I cursed all the way to the ballet.
We sat on the plush red seat cushions and kissed before Baryshnikov came onstage, the whole of his powerful frame a knot of kinetic energy that leapt as though the stage were a springboard. I always insisted on sitting up front so I could appreciate the strength of the dancers, the tautness of their muscles, the sweat on their skin. My lover of motorcycles and poetry once licked my eyeball so quick I hadn’t time to blink, and told me he dreamt of crossing a desert with me, of living on nothing but bee pupae and dates. In warm weather he trod across the university campus in bare feet and a four-week beard, singing loudly in German, which was his area of study, to find me in the chaste, narrow bed allocated to undergraduates. There, while the church bells chimed outside my window, he took his time crossing my body with his tongue.
‘I’m Stephen,’ said my husband, a stranger to me then. Dark jeans, expensive jacket, an upper lip that is full like a girl’s, against a startlingly handsome face. ‘Are you plugged into something?’
My legs were straddling empty air, my back vibrating with an imagined Harley engine, my arms wrapped around the nothingness in front of me. I was laughing. I wasn’t sure at first that Stephen was even speaking to me. I was surrounded by young women – he could have been addressing one of them. But the crowd I was entertaining with this impression seemed to shrink back with Stephen’s approach. Apparently, they all knew him, knew the type of man he was and to back off with his arrival. I didn’t know anything. My lover, now dead, was killed in a highway collision on his way to work one morning. I couldn’t even drive a motorcycle, knowing only to hang on to the boy in front of me, whose head was shielded by a shining black helmet. His precious head.
‘Pretending to be on a motorcycle,’ I said. Suddenly, the whole idea seemed stupid.
‘Do you like motorcycles?’ asked Stephen.
‘I used to.’
‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked, nodding toward the bar. ‘A glass of wine, perhaps?’
I