The Curious Incidence of Novels About Aspergerʹs Syndrome

Since Aspergerʹs Syndrome was formally recognised in 1994, several novels featuring characters with the syndrome have appeared. Bill Greenwellʹs article discusses these books in providing a context for a closer consideration of the British publishing sensation of 2003, Mark Haddonʹs ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’. The reasons for the success of this suburban comedy, Greenwell argues, include the consequences for the reader of Haddonʹs choice of the sufferer from Aspergerʹs as narrator, especially the generation of unconscious humour and the range of literary forms he uses to tell his story. Nicholas Tucker adds an Afterword from his perspective as an educational psychologist as well as a literary critic, finding in the novel a rich mixture of heroism, mystery and love mediated through narrrative ingenuity.