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Once at a party, while I was holding a martini in my hand, I backed into a large armchair and accidentally did a backflip over the arm of it, landing on my feet-without spilling a drop of the martini. (It's possible that this was not my first martini of the evening.) I stood there blinking. Witnesses report that I then said casually, "And that's how centrifugal force keeps water from flying off our spinning planet."

Perspective. That's what you get from the natural sciences. Perspective.

I find curiosity and a passion for learning glamorous, even sexy. I'm not a scientist; I don't even play one on TV. But I love the knowledge we get from the natural sciences: biology, geology, astronomy, the disciplines devoted to figuring out how the real world works. Their aerial view-above my daily earthbound scurry in the minutiae of paying bills and driving in rush hour-enriches my life and gives me a different perspective.

But I had never really been asked to justify my interest in nature and the natural sciences until this guy walked up to me at a book festival last year-a miniature fellow in a crazy loud houndstooth-of-the-baskervilles blazer. He looked very intense. I thought, Hmm, he can't dislike me already; we haven't even met.

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One child with autism is a big enough challenge for any family. But what happens when a family has more than one child with the disorder? Two Penguin books discuss the moving and inspiring stories of multiples with autism.

Three Times the Love
Finding Answers and Hope for Our Triplets with Autism
Lynn and Randy Gaston - Author

$25.00 - Add to Cart

Book: Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 240 pages | ISBN 9781583333501 | 19 Mar 2009 | Avery | 14 - AND UP years

Synopsis:

Three Times the Love is the inspiring true story of an ordinary American family who face an extraordinary challenge. Lynn and Randy Gaston were overjoyed to discover they were having triplets after many arduous years of trying to conceive. But eighteen months after their births, Lynn and Randy's sons began exhibiting odd new behaviors-among them, toe walking, arm flapping, and in one of the boys, Nicholas, a sudden muteness. Terrified and dumbfounded, Lynn began researching their behavior on the Internet. The same glaring diagnosis kept popping up-each boy was displaying symptoms of autism, though at different points on the spectrum.

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Prose is the normal, everyday writing people are used to seeing in magazines, newspapers, and books. Verse is poetry.

Why write a novel in verse?

My first and most personal answer is, "Because that is how it came out of me." I tend to think in whorls of words that go together, and I have been writing poetry most of my life.

The other answer I can give is that using poetry for Because I Am Furniture allowed me to do two seemingly opposing things. I could both lighten the weight of the subject of abuse and incest with fewer words and more white space, and use denser, stronger words to portray abuse and incest that might have been overwhelming in prose.

I am fascinated to hear that "reluctant readers" and those with learning disabilities often love novels in verse. They can be read in less time than traditional prose novels. Language is simply put, but does not talk down to the reader. Words don't blanket every page visually. And poems often mimic the word-entangled patterns of thought, as opposed to the full sentences and correct grammar written prose can present.

Poetry has taken a recent turn, being in novel format. Free verse is the most common poem form used for novels. In free verse there are no rules of rhyme and meter, unless the author is making a point with them. Formality is set aside in this style of poetry, but creating a novel in verse is serious business. There are many poems to link in a coherent way. Character arcs and minor plot threads to weave throughout. Large issues to lay down with very few words. And the voice must be believable within the confines of the verse.

 

 

 

 

» Mehmet Murat Somer discusses the first novel in his "Turkish Delight" mystery series and why he chose to make the main detective a transvestite.

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Mehmet Murat Somer, The Kiss Murder, Podcast