Twin

When Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would later be diagnosed as autism. Understanding Mary and giving her a happy life seemed impossible for the Shawns. With almost no warning, her parents sent Mary to a residential treatment center at the age of eight. She never lived at home again.Fifty years later, as he probed the sources of his anxieties, Allen realized that his fate was inextricably linked to his sister's and that their...
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When Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would later be diagnosed as autism. Understanding Mary and giving her a happy life seemed impossible for the Shawns. With almost no warning, her parents sent Mary to a residential treatment center at the age of eight. She never lived at home again.Fifty years later, as he probed the sources of his anxieties, Allen realized that his fate was inextricably linked to his sister's and that their natures were far from being different.Twin highlights the difficulties families coping with autism faced in the 1950s. It reconstructs a parallel narrative for the two siblings, who experienced such divergent fates yet shared talents and proclivities. Wrenching, honest, and poetic, Twin is about the mystery of being inextricably bonded to someone who can never be truly understood.