Today I’d like to talk about my book Fruit Woman. When I wrote it in the 1990s, I didn’t know Helen was autistic. Just to give you a bit of a blurb – Fruit Woman takes place on a family holiday which triggers many memories of holidays of yore for Helen. I won't give any spoilers although this may be a trigger for some people as Helen's cousin was accused of the rape of a family friend, several years before while Helen was away at university.
Fruit Woman is set in the 1980s and also refers back to the 1960s and 1970s in the form of flashbacks. In the 1980s, there was a definite profile of what autistic was - and it was usually male and usually a child, although of course there were big screen portrayals like Rain Man. However, even that hadn't been released when this book was set. Nowadays, Helen, and her younger sister Cathy, would probably be diagnosed with autism. As I am autistic myself I recognise many of their traits. Many of them were based on me.
People reviewing the book have commented that Helen is more like a teenager than someone of twenty-seven. I have to say there are many autistics older than Helen who are just as child-like and young for their age! Helen is naive and believing so she doesn’t always see danger. At their old Devon holiday haunt—Myrtle Cottages—Helen's best friend Bella accuses her of being 'deliberately obtuse', unable to believe she could be so clueless. But Helen tends to take people at face value. She is ultra sensitive and feels things more intensely than most of her contemporaries. She’s always been like this and didn’t always understand the social rules as a child and therefore she and her sister Cathy were susceptible to bullying. We learn how socially awkward Helen and Cathy were as children, how hard for them to fit in, especially having moved to a completely new area. This is something my own sister and I had to contend with at primary school age.
Helen probably has ADHD too which often co-exists with autism. She finds it hard to concentrate on the world around her and has always lived in a bit of a fantasy world with her sister Cathy. This has been a way of coping with the pressing demands of the real world. “Oh yes, Cathy, I'll dream if you dream. Remember? Remember the birds egg which cracked open and released the feathered cat, all staggering and sticky and ugly to begin with but didn't he become a beautiful creature, that great winged cat with his stunning smokey plumage? It was all animals in those days, born from the walls of the glass knight. They knew we were different, Cathy, didn't they? But were we different because we were alone or alone because we were different?"
Helen also alludes to the way Cathy asks deep questions as soon as someone walks into the room and states that Cathy "wasn't made for such earthly chores as picking ripe avocados or making decent cups of tea. Dear Cathy, who can't function in the commercial world at all but thrives on a bit of voluntary work and the odd W.E.A. class." (WEA stands for Workers’ Educational Association which is basically adult education). Cathy always loved chess and, particularly as a child, failed to pick up on cues from other children. This is common in some children but especially autistics who often fail to read the emotions of the other, eg when another person is bored etc.
'Ah, you soon frightened them off, Cathy, those school friends you brought home, sat down and forced chess upon - those patient or bright enough to learn the rules. You couldn't see that just because you were bats about chess, other little girls and boys preferred to study tadpoles in jars or play hopscotch or conkers. You were still young enough to be completely ruthless. Perhaps one or two of the children might have been a trifle more interested if you'd conceded a few moves or let them think that they'd nearly won once or twice, just to boost their confidence, but instead you thrashed them, each and every one."
I remember doing this with a child myself which I may have mentioned in an earlier blog. I’d just learned to play chess and thought my only friend (at that time) must love it too! I think it took my mum to rescue the poor child!
Well, I hope that’s given you a flavour of the book and the characters of Helen and Cathy. It was a complete revelation to me about their neurodiversity but now it seems plain to me. Just as a footnote, I have been toying with the idea of changing the title to 'By Their Fruits' mainly because some readers are missing the concept of the fruit woman which is reflected in some reviews - maybe it raises the wrong sort of expectations. I don't know. Anyway, the book is available as Fruit Woman at the moment on Amason both in digital and paperback format.
I’ve embedded the video content in this blog and, as always, please do leave a comment below.
Many thanks
