Photo: Emily Schultz
At 20 months old, my son, Henry, could spell ?elephant? with alphabet magnets. Now five, he can read Green Eggs and Ham or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In fact, he can read almost anything you put in front of him. My sister-in-law once held up pages with Shakespearean quotes on them: ?To be, or not to be: That is the question? and ?Now is the winter of our discontent.? My son read them aloud?and yet he can?t talk. Not like other kids. I don?t get to hear about how his day was or what he wants to do next. He?s never told me what he was dreaming of when he woke from a nightmare. To even say ?I?m hungry? or ?I?m tired? can be a huge effort for him.
As a parent, you have some simple, universal expectations: Your kid will walk and talk at the same time as others, learn to socialize, imitate you. But what happens when he doesn?t" I was a gregarious kid who excelled at everything, especially reading and writing. From an early age I wanted to become a writer, and I pursued it resolutely. I rounded up my classmates and put them to work making our own newspapers and magazines. By 28, my first story collection had been published; by 32, my first novel. Now I live in New York, and my fourth novel, Men Walking on Water, has just come out. So when I imagined my child, I assumed he?d be like me?a communicator, even if he was a bit dreamy?or like my husband, Brian, a one-time teenage delinquent-turned-artist. Would my son and I cuddle under blankets and read the ...