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For years, it’s been impossible to say why I insist, nightly, on setting out five plates and five forks and something hot in a pan that I’d be embarrassed by if any adult I wasn’t married to caught sight of. Though all research trumpets the importance of family dinners, I sometimes wonder if these researchers actually do it themselves. These days, our dinners usually feel like a nightly opportunity for everyone to think of new and imaginative ways to complain about the food. Generally, we begin with the four-year-old’s pronouncement, said ritually like grace, that he is allergic to all food except noodles. Following this, the eight-year-old begins the elaborate process of separating any food that has touched another, and eventually we segue into the moment when the eleven-year-old lays his cheek on the table and says he’s too tired for all this all over again. Truly, I've wondered sometimes if maybe not eating together would bring us closer, or at least spare us the nightly speech from their father: “Mom has cooked us a lovely dinner. I’d like everyone to thank Mom for the food.”

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As a social butterfly type who apparently didn’t think through the 95%-of-the-time-spent-in-isolation aspect of writing when I chose my career, book group visitations are a fabulous development. For some of us, in fact, they’re as rewarding as a paycheck: a group of friendly, literate strangers, a wine glass in every hand, a coffee table groaning with food, everyone assembled to talk about—well, a book that’s certainly interesting to me! Of course, the ideal group is sixteen women who loved the book and bought extra copies to get signed and pass on as Christmas and birthday presents, but I have to admit I even enjoy the opposite extreme: four retired English teachers who’ve all shared a library copy and have one or two problems with some plot points. Inevitably, I can’t help but appreciate the care with which they’ve read the book, and the reminder that there are careful, smart readers out there.

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If summer is a time for family reunions and visiting old friends, when you’re the parent of a child with autism, it’s also a time for taking stock and hoping to hear accolades from people who haven’t seen your child for a while: I can’t believe how well he’s doing/how much he’s talking/how great he seems. Sadly, this summer, we haven’t heard too much of this.

All children with autism go through ups and downs. There are phases of mysterious and surprising leaps, where you look at every supplement, every therapy and food he’s eaten to explain some new, remarkable clarity. Then there are the phases like the one our 11-year-old, Ethan, seems to have been in most of the summer: not dreadful, just a lot of mindless humming, lots of silence, lots of staring out windows watching other children play in our backyard.

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Cammie McGovern is our guest blogger during the week of August 13th. If you have any questions for Cammie McGovern, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some brief information about Eye Contact:

"In the tradition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Cammie McGovern delivers a compelling murder mystery that intrigues as much by what it hides as by what it so deftly reveals—the stark, poignant, deeply intimate moments in the lives of people living with autism and those who love them."—Patricia Stacey, author of The Boy Who Loved Windows

Like The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Cammie McGovern’s breakout novel is at once a hypnotic thriller and an affecting portrait of people as real as our next-door neighbors. In Eye Contact, two children vanish in the woods behind their elementary school. Hours later, nine-year-old Adam is found alive, the sole witness to his playmate’s murder. But because Adam has autism, he is a silent witness. Only his mother, Cara, can help decode his behavior for the police. As the suspense ratchets, Eye Contact becomes a heart-stopping exploration of the bond between a mother and a very special child.