Are You Seeing Me?

May 11, 2015
Groth presents an insightful and rewarding road-trip story about 19-year-old Australian twins Perry and Justine Richter. Their mother abandoned them when they were children, and Justine has served as the caregiver for Perry, who is on the autism spectrum, ever since their father’s death. While high-functioning Perry is intelligent and kindhearted, his anxiety can turn to panic, and his obsessions with sea monsters, Jackie Chan, and seismic activity can be a handful, even for patient, understanding Justine. Two years after their father’s death, Perry has decided to move into a group home, so this two-week trip traveling through the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. and Canada marks the end of an era in their relationship. Along the way, they visit a lake that’s allegedly home to the mythical Ogopogo, meet people with a range of reactions to Perry, and track down their mother. Told from the alternating perspectives of both twins, along with excerpts from their father’s journal, Groth’s story is uncommonly sensitive, his characters’ emotional journeys as critical as their physical ones. Ages 12–up. Agent: John Pearce, Westwood Creative Artists.

June 1, 2015
Australian twins Perry, who has a brain condition, and Justine, who is his full-time caregiver, travel together to Vancouver. Justine and Perry's mother left when the two were children, and their father died of cancer just before they turned 18. For two years, Justine has served as Perry's sole caregiver, but after the trip, Perry will move into Fair Go, a residential facility their father chose before his death. Justine and Perry narrate alternating sections, interspersed with short passages from their father's journal. Between the journal entries, which recount moments from the twins' childhood, and the canned spiel Justine gives strangers to explain Perry's "inappropriate" behavior, a large part of the aim here seems to be introducing neurotypical readers to Perry's condition. The story unfolds with intimacy and affection, shown through the twins' special nicknames for each other and each sibling's desire to do right by the other. Perry's attempts to follow social rules and his enthusiasm for his interests-Jackie Chan, seismology, mythical monsters-are clear in the sections he narrates, but how he feels about essentially being apologized for every time Justine gives her spiel is unfortunately never explored. There's a warm family story amid the didacticism, but the sense that autism must be constantly explained and justified to outsiders is discomfiting. (Fiction. 14-18)

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