Daniel Isn't Talking Hardback - 2006

Excerpt

Emily has a mop of blond curls billowing around her face, smiling eyes, aquamarine. Her baby teeth, spread wide in her mouth, remind me of a ­jack-­o’-­lantern, and when she laughs it is as though there are bubbles inside her, a sea of contentment. She carries Mickey Mouse by his neck, and wears a length of cord pinned to her trousers so that she, too, has a tail. Kneeling on a chair beside the dining table, she instructs me on the various ways one can paint Dumbo’s relatives, who wear decorated blankets which require much precision. Unlike most children, who only paint on paper, Emily enjoys painting ­three-­dimensional objects and so, for this reason, we own nine gray rubber elephants, some with trunks up and some with trunks down, that she has decorated many times. She has yet to find an elephant she thinks is a suitable Dumbo, and so we just have the nine so far.

Daniel has one toy he likes and hundreds he ignores. The one toy he likes is a wooden Brio model of Thomas the Tank Engine. It has a face like a clock, framed in black, with a chimney that serves almost as a kind of hat. The train must go with him everywhere and must either be in his hand or in his mouth. Never in Emily’s hand and never washed in the sink, as I am now doing. No amount of reassurance from me, no promise that this will take only one minute, less than a minute, does anything to soothe Daniel, who pounds at my thighs with his small hands, screams like a monkey, opening his mouth so wide I can see down his throat.

“Daniel, please don’t cry.” I give him back the train but it is too late. He’s so upset now that he cannot stop. His eyes are screwed shut, his chin tucked as though trying to ward off a blow to the face. I am on my knees in front of him, putting my arms around his shoulders, but this causes him to wrench away, falling with a thud onto the carpet just as Stephen walks through the door from work.

“I could hear him from the street,” Stephen says. He’s holding his mail in one hand, his cell phone in the other. Standing at the door, his tie knotted crisply, his jacket folded over one arm, he looks as though he has entered the house from another world, one that is ordered and logical, one that is calm. He steps around Daniel and goes to the back door, waving to Emily who is making towers of blocks on our small patio. She runs to him and I hear the clap of her arms around his waist, her happy chatter as she tells him she made a tower as tall as herself. Stephen brings her over to where I am with Daniel, holding her on his hip.

“Why is Daniel crying?” Emily asks.

“Because I washed his train.” I try to smile, to make a funny face. “He’ll be okay,” I tell her.

“Daniel, shhhhh!” she says to him, but he pays no attention.

“Do you think he’s allergic to something?” Stephen asks.

“I think...” I don’t want to tell Stephen what I think. I only had that train for half a minute. It seems to me Daniel cries more and more with each passing day for all sorts of bizarre and inexplicable reasons. And I have no idea why.

“What do you think?” Stephen asks. His voice sounds sharp, but it might just be because he is trying to be heard over the noise.

“That it isn’t normal.”

Stephen puts Emily down, telling her to get her Mickey Mouse. “I want a word with that mouse,” he says ­mock-­seriously, which sends Emily into fits of giggles. Then he squats next to me on the floor, putting his arms out for Daniel, who ignores him. “It’s the terrible twos,” he says in a manner that tells me this is not a suggestion but a declaration of fact.

“He’s almost three.”

Stephen sighs. He is so used to my worries about Daniel that they must feel a burden to him now. I can tell this is the case, but I can’t make myself react any differently. He gets up and goes back to the mail, sifting through envelopes. After a moment or two he says, “Young children cry. Isn’t that what you always tell me?”

But not like this. I spend every day with young children. I see them at toddler groups. I see them at playgrounds.

None of them are like Daniel. “That’s not why,” I say.

Media reviews

“… watching a handicapped child rend the fragile seams of a woman's personality and her marriage exposes us to some of the more honest and guilty realities of being a parent, and with it a mother's very human pursuit of a livable, if not perfect, ending.”
— New York Times Book Review and International Herald Tribune

“Moving, frequently funny and never mawkish.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Leimbach, herself the parent of an autistic child, does an excellent job of showing a mother fighting with every ounce of her being for what is right for her children and, ultimately, herself. A most satisfying read.”
— Library Journal

“A skillfully crafted and bracingly unsentimental look at one mother's love — sometimes tender, sometimes frantic, always fierce — in the face of adversity.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Never bleak, this inspiring read sheds light on the often misunderstood condition.” — The Works magazine

“Tender, involving tale of a family in crisis.”
— Woman and Home

“...one of the most enchanting and gripping books of the year...Leimbach knows how to engage her readers completely.”
— Daily Mail

“If you like fiction emphatic and passionate, you’ll relish this...”
— Independent

“...so heartfelt, realistic and informative...Leimbach vividly portrays both overwhelming maternal love and the ins and outs of autism... This is thought-provoking writing.”
— Sunday Times

“Marti Leimbach's surprisingly upbeat novel about autism and divorce. . . captures the conflicting loyalties Melanie feels as mother, wife and independent woman.”
— Bloomberg.com

“This novel is bittersweet, resilient and not to be missed”
— Bookpage.com

“Armchair Interviews says this reviewer found Daniel Isn't Talking totally ‘un-putdownable.’”
— ArmchairInterviews.com

“Heartwrenching while at the same time warm and uplifting . . . Daniel Isn't Talking is a gently written tale full of emotion — pain and despair, but above all, hope.”
— BookLoons.com

“I was riveted, engrossed — all those wonderful things one hopes for when opening a book. Marti Leimbach's portrayal of a mother facing unbelievable hardships is very real and gripping."
— Anita Shreve, author of The Pilot’s Wife and The Weight of Water

“Any parent will recognize the combustion of love and anxiety that fuels Marti Leimbach’s vivid new novel. Daniel Isn’t Talking is an affecting study of parental devotion.”
— Jennifer Egan, author of Look at Me

“Powerful, moving and also surprisingly funny. A love story in every sense.”
— Deborah Moggach, author of Tulip Fever

“A terrific book, informed passionate and touching. Leimbach handles the problem of the autistic child beautifully and I was thoroughly engrossed until the last page.”
— Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

“Leimbach writes with a shrewd, dry-eyed, perceptively acquisitive energy. . . .”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Dying Young is a masterpiece of details that always rings true, with the sad, funny and fascinating unpredictability of real life.”
— People magazine