Cover: Russell Cobb
‘Oh my God, Noel, you’re magic! . . . that’s why I hang out with you : you’re different. You’re a complete misfit and you don’t give a toss. I love that. Even more than Jazzies.’ (p 186-7)
For any one with (sadly) limited confectionery experience, these are Jazzies.
Curiouser and curiouser and curiouser
It is now almost twenty years since Mark Haddon produced the ground-breaking The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. His book was remarkable in featuring very positively as its main character a boy with what appeared to be Asperger’s Syndrome. It was it even more remarkable in its phenomenal and continuing international success. (Although it is a brilliant book, so perhaps not all that surprising.)
In the years since, there have been quite a number of children’s and teen novels featuring characters on the Autistic Spectrum, many of then outstanding books. This may well be because of their authors’ strong commitment to the importance of this subject, but clearly many of them are excellent writers too. This has, of course, been a wonderful and important thing. However, it does beg the question of whether we needed yet another novel for young readers about a kid with ASD.
The answer is a resounding YES when it is as entertaining, truthful and moving as TheAsparagusBunch from Jessica Scott-Whyte. It is a simply joyous read.
The story centres on three young people, brought together by the fact that they each display a different form of neurodivergence. Its narrator (or supposed author) Leon, lives with his single-parent mother, who works on Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The most prominent aspect of his Asperger’s (ASD, or whatever you like to call it) is a huge obsession with sweets; that is international confectionary in every conceivable aspect, its comparative quality, its history, science, social importance, you name it. It is hard to imagine that he is not a (if not the) world expert. Tanya, his eventual big ‘mate’, wants to be a writer, despite her dyslexia, whilst Lawrence (aka Beeboy) has ASD with somewhat different characteristics (as is often the case). In this book you get three joyously neurodivergent characters for the price of one.
Novels about neurodivergent kids usually have lists
Here are some of the reasons I am so excited about The Asparagus Bunch:
- I love Blackpool; I was born and brought up not too far away and my grandmother lived there.
- Leon, the main kid, calls lunch dinner and dinner tea, just like I do (what with me having been born and brought up not too far from Blackpool).
- Leon just says straight out the sort of things about other people that we (I suppose I mean I ) wish we could say.
- Leon is great. I would love to hang out with him.
- It is a very sweet book (sorry). Leon loves some of the confectionery items I did as a kid (especially Christmas selection boxes).
- It is written in the past tense (Yea!).
- It is hilariously funny (main reason).
You think that there’s nothing funny about ASD?
Well, I’m sorry. but Jessica Scott-Whyte just proved you dead wrong. The Asparagus Bunch is one of the most delightful, entertaining, sometimes side-splitting books I have read in a long time. But it is also one of the most sensitive, caring, and positive in sharing understanding about neurodivergence and promoting the importance of valuing ways of thinking and experiencing that are different but not inferior. It strongly encourages those with neurodivergent outlooks to be strong and proud in their difference. It also promps the rest of us to recognise their potential and their integrity as well being sensitive and supportive to their needs.
Jessica Scott-Whyte’s genius is to get us to identify wholeheartedly with Leon from the very start. This means we are always totally on his side, understand completely where he is coming from and indeed accept his different thinking and behaviour as our new normal. So often this author brings out the humour in Leon’s neurodivergent behaviour, but she is categorically not poking fun, rather just seeing the funny side, as it were, from inside.
More than this, Leon is frequently witty, clever and downright hilarious in his comments on life and other people. He shows remarkable insight, pertinent, needle-sharp observation and honesty (crowned by the glory of saying exactly what he thinks without inhibition). At other times he displays a charming naivety, that is more to do with his age and life experience (or lack of it) that with any neurodiversity.
One of this author’s great talent is in making valid points at the same time as being funny. As in her chapter title, ‘Dyslexics are Teople Poo’. She make us smile, and gets her point across without any heavy lecturing. It is just brilliant.
Conversation at school (from page 78):
Tanya: Gotta swing by the loo.
Leon: As if this place wasn’t shambollic enough. Why would they go and install a swing beside the toilets?
Tanya (rolling her eyes): I have to go to the loo. Is that better?
Leon: Well, it’s certainly more reassuring.
Typically, it’s not Leon’s inability to relate to idiom that is so funny, as much as his final dry reposte.
Although, to be fair, Tanya herself does a pretty good line in repartee.
‘You’d better shut that smart-arse mouth of yours, mate, before I rip off your goolies, roll ‘em in icing sugar and eat them as bonbons.’ (p 106)
(Remember. Leon has an obsession with confectionery.)
(If you don’t find at least one of these very funny then this book is probably not for you. But are you for real?)
There is also much entertaining banter between the three ‘mates’ and though it often includes mocking of each other’s ‘afflictions’, it is always good-humoured, underpinned with understanding and respect. This is effectively contrasted with the taunts of the bully, Glen, which make very clear the difference between friendly joshing and cruel mockery.
Another of Jessica Scott-Whyte’s master strokes is to make Leaon’s principal problem in the narrative one that pertains to many children and is not exclusive to ASD, his mother’s taking up with a ‘new fella’. Leon’s extreme reaction, as usual very freely and bluntly expressed, probably opens up feeling shared by many, as well as promoting understanding by others.
What another list?
Some more reasons I am so excited about The Asparagus Bunch:
- Like much good comedy, there is touching pathos not far below the surface.
- Noel is possibly the only person I have ever met (real or fictional) who can turn an appallingly bad attitude into an endearing (even an admirable) quality. He thinks he is normal and the rest of us think differently. He could well be right.
- Like Noel, I am delighted that God made me an atheist.
- Amidst the humour, the author communicates effectively the severe stress that can be experienced by ASD and other neurodivergent children.
- Jessica Scott-Whyte uses laughter to show us vividly and truthfully how someone who thinks differently thinks. That is so much more accessible (and effective) than lecturing (main reason).
- The sweet ending might verge on the sentimental but it still sent me rushing off to seek out again Track 7 from Carole King’s Tapestry LP*
- . . . and a Toblerone.
Got it covered, mate
This wonderful book revels joyously in promoting and celebrating the importance of difference in our society, both for those who are neurodivergent and those who aren’t. It deepens the humanity in us all. It lightens the load for those facing difficult times in life and is simply one of the finest books of recent years.**
After all, sometimes, for all of us, ‘Life is like a Marshmallow. Easy to chew but hard to swallow.’ (p 156)
Russel Cobb’s cover illustration not only catches the essence of the book, but is startlingly arresting, which is just brilliant for a book completely deserving to be (correction) destined to be one of the biggest hits of 2022.
* ‘You’ve got a friend’
** Oh, and did I say, it’s very funny.