When I was reading Madeleine Ryan's A Room Called Earth, I dogeared so many pages. But all the words that stuck with me seemed to boil down to these:
"Idleness, or appearing to be lost or alone, or like you're reflecting upon something, isn't valued in social environments. Even standing still for a tad too long or just noticing the fact of existing is considered to be distinctly unproductive and antisocial. It implies that we haven't been chosen." (146)
It's not often that I begin a review with a quote. But that seemed like the best thing to do here. Because if I started by saying that this novel is about a young woman going to a party, then you might expect a rom com with a meet cute and a heroine who snorts when she laughs but is otherwise normal. But A Room Called Earth isn't like that. It's about a woman who is autistic -- and the author is too.
The woman in the novel doesn't have a name. But she spills her thoughts in an unfiltered monologue that lets us get to know her better than any of the people she actually meets. Although she's at a party, holding her own, fighting awkward exchanges with her blunt brand of finesse, her main concern is being her own confidante. It's not that she wouldn't like to make connections; it's that the system is flawed, its players untrustworthy. Other people, after all, have a way of poisoning relationships with their agendas and need for competition and gossip, a sad truth she's gleaned from experiences with a large number of friends and boyfriends. I thought that an autistic woman wouldn't have sought out so many others, but then, maybe that's the point. That those relationships didn't work. Even though being with people and belonging is what the world demands.
That said, she does meet a guy, and he seems to be into her. What happens next is as far away from chick lit as a swan song is from a scar.
Sometimes funny, always melancholy, A Room Called Earth isn't for everyone. But it should be. Because autistic or not, we all sometimes feel like the world is performing a play in a different language. And in the chaos of that disconnect, there's something poignantly hopeful about a woman who chooses herself.
