To grasp the enormous struggle facing people with autism, dyslexia and similar disorders, open a copy of “With the Light,” an extraordinary manga novel that is oriented exactly as it was originally published in Japan.
Don’t be daunted by the length. Tobe’s “With the Light” is a graphic novel, told in comic-style panels, about the new mother of an autistic child.
Sachiko Azuma names her baby boy Hikaru — Japanese for “to be bright” — and is puzzled and heartbroken when she tries to console him with hugs and kisses.
Initially misdiagnosed as deaf or depressed, Hikaru finally is identified as autistic. At first, his father rejects him. Eventually, the family reunites as Sachiko learns from specialists how to use pictures and photographs to coax communication from Hikaru.
Both parents continue to be daunted by the incessant task of learning to communicate with a child whose worldview is so alien to their own. The work is even harder when longtime friends withdraw in fear and disapproval of Hikaru’s foreign ways.
Sachiko’s mother-in-law initially blames her for Hikaru’s disability. In time, the mother-in-law comes to accept her grandson, but author Tobe never sugarcoats the pain involved for everyone.
“I feel so pathetic!” Sachiko cries. When she takes her son to a park, she lapses into despair:
“I can’t help but feel helpless … crying again. Helpless because my words don’t reach him. My feelings don’t reach him. If he answers me just once. If he, just once, would call me ‘Mommy’… I’ll feel happy that I became a parent.”
As she buries her face in her hands, Hikaru approaches with fistfuls of blossoms. He lays them out in a careful line, and Sachiko recognizes this attempt at comfort. Forgetting herself, she hugs Hikaru and apologizes when he pushes her away.
“We might have a connection of our own,” Sachiko says. “It’s just different from everyone else’s.”
The episodes continue through Hikaru’s early elementary years, and his adjustment to the birth of a baby sister. The book is labeled Vol. 1, implying that Hikiru’s saga continues. In Japan, the story inspired an award-winning television drama.
To Western eyes, the novel’s back-to-front, left-to-right arrangement requires constant attention. Lapsing into conventional Western right-to-left reading means losing track of the story line.
It’s not a big leap to make the connection: This disorienting and exhausting diligence must be akin to what’s required of autistics struggling to find common ground in a society they find unimaginably foreign.
What a double blessing — a story that sheds light on a largely unknown world by presenting that tale in a format that demands readers to consider a dramatically different perception of their familiar universe.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
FICTION
With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, by Keiko Tobe, $14.99
