Simsion said he was really worried about writing about an 11-year-old in "The Rosie Result." His kids are grown up, so he's "at that awkward age where you don't hang out with 11-year-olds." To make it easier, he decided to base Hudson on himself at that age, though Simsion himself doesn't identify as autistic. But if Hudson is autistic, is that something to treat or something to accept? Don then launches the "Hudson Project" to determine if he can help his son learn to fit in and decide if they should look into treating his behaviors. In fact, his school calls and suggests they should look into diagnosing him as autistic. When Don's family makes the move from the United States to Australia, Hudson struggles to cope with the transition. "They have become a really powerful minority group."Īnd so, Simsion has in recent years come to see that Don in fact would be considered autistic, and he brought that issue forward in "The Rosie Result," especially in dealing with Don's 11-year-old son, Hudson. "It's a good way for people on the spectrum to communicate in writing rather than having to worry about body language," Simsion said. For another, social media, especially Twitter, has become a platform for autism activists to come together and make the world more aware of their experiences.
For one thing, Asperger's syndrome has been absorbed into the broader spectrum of autism.
Since “The Rosie Project” was published in 2013, the conversation around autism has changed dramatically, Simsion said. “They were just geeks,” he said, and had no more clinical label applied to them. Simsion said he’d been around a lot of guys like Don as he’d joined the radio club and studied physics in school. Simsion, who resides with his wife in Australia, said his colleagues from his former career in information technology inspired the idea for “The Rosie Project.” One co-worker in particular had a “wife project” the same way Simsion’s main character, Don Tillman, does - he had a long questionnaire for prospective women, attended lots of singles events, and was deliberate about meeting somebody.īut, as far as Simsion knows, this co-worker was never diagnosed as autistic. Simsion will visit The King's English book shop in Salt Lake on Wednesday.
More than a decade later, he’s coming out with the third book in the series, “ The Rosie Result” (Text Publishing, 384 pages), with a story that centers around autism. SALT LAKE CITY - When author Graeme Simsion first sat down to write his future bestseller “ The Rosie Project,” he had no intention of writing an autistic main character.
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