Bad Animals: A Father's Accidental Education in Autism

By Joel Yanofsky

“A highly readable [and] entertaining telling of what a family, and a marriage especially, goes through when hit with autism spectrum disorders” (Winnipeg Free Press).
 
Honest, heartfelt, and often candidly funny, this account of a year in the life of a family describes the struggle of a father, a lifelong book-loving obsessive, to enter and understand his son’s world—the world of autism—using the materials he knows best: self-help books, feel-good memoirs, literary classics from the Bible to Dr. Seuss, old movies, and a stubborn sense of humor. Bad Animals is an exploration of a baffling condition, a memoir of self-discovery enlivened by a self-deprecating wit, and a quirky love story told by a gifted writer.
 
“Sardonically funny and heartfelt enough to draw tears, an immensely satisfying read for parents of disabled and non-disabled children alike . . . A funny, deeply moving and refreshingly honest memoir of raising an autistic child.” —Montreal Gazette

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781620873137

Joel Yanofsky

Joel Yanofsky has worked as a literary journalist, book reviewer and freelance writer since 1983. He has interviewed and profiled dozens of authors, from Margaret Atwood to John Updike. He has been a columnist for The Montreal Gazette, and his humour columns have appeared in MTL magazine, MENZ, Books in Canada and The Gazette. He's also written for The Village Voice, Chatelaine, Reader's Digest, TV Guide, The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. He has been nominated for two Quebec Magazine awards. His autobiographical novel Jacob's Ladder was published in 1997, his memoir Mordecai and Me in 2003, and his memoir Bad Animals in 2011.