The Boy Who Went Away [Paperback]

Denny Graubart, child-narrator and domestic surveillance expert, is having some terrible suspicions about his mother and autistic brother. Its the 1960s, aka the Diagnostic Dark Ages of Autism, and while his mother struggles to keep his brother out of an institution, signs of something more disturbing are beginning to emerge before young Dennys eyes. Battered by his own tragicomic sexual awakening during a long, hot summer, Denny will eventually find his most horrified suspicions about his family confirmed. A powerfully drawn portrait of two brothers locked into an asymmetrical childhood and a family struggling against a weight of medical ignorance,Winner of the American AcademysRome Prize for Fiction and the McKitterick Prize, Eli Gottliebstender, harrowing coming-of-agenovel finally returns to print.US