美国国家公共电台 NPR In Helen Hoang's Novels, Autism Is No Bar To Love And Happiness

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Esme Tran supports her family, including her 5-year-old daughter, by working as a maid in a Ho Chi Minh City hotel - until one day, a wealthy American woman offers her an opportunity to go and live in California and accompany her son, Khai, who is autistic and has never had a girlfriend, to all the family weddings that summer. Khai resists his mother's matchmaking. But, well, it wouldn't be much of a romance novel if they didn't begin to fall in love. Helen Hoang is the author of "The Bride Test," and she joins me now. Hello.

HELEN HOANG: Hi, thank you for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So tell me about Esme and Khai. How does that romance between them unfold?

HOANG: So she gets invited to the United States by his mother. And his mother says to him that, you know, he has to let this woman live in his house for the summer - just the summer - so that he can hopefully develop a relationship or a connection with her. And while Esme is there, then she, of course, tries her hardest to seduce¹ him. And it's awkward and really uncomfortable. And because he's on the spectrum², he's set in his ways. And she has some difficulties assimilating. So they - they both have to reach a compromise together and learn from each other.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Your last book, "The Kiss Quotient," also featured an autistic main character. And you've said that through writing that story, you also came to realize your own autism at the age of 34. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

HOANG: So I'd been considering writing a gender-swapped "Pretty Woman," but I didn't know why, you know, a successful beautiful woman would hire an escort. And I puzzled over this for a long time. And it was a meeting with my daughter's preschool teacher that really brought things together for me. She told me that she thought my daughter was on the autism spectrum.

And that was very surprising for me because at that time, I hadn't had much exposure to autism. But, you know, I came home, and I kind of researched it. And it didn't seem right because my little girl is not - she didn't seem to be autistic from what I knew and what I saw, what I was reading online.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: From your perceptions as her mom.

HOANG: Yes. But then I was thinking about, you know, autism. And one of the big things they say is it's - there's difficulty with social interaction. And that - that's something that I can really empathize with. And I thought, wouldn't that be an interesting reason to hire an escort? And so I started to research autism solely³ for the book. But as I researched, I ran into this very interesting thing where autism seems to display differently in women than in men. Women have learned to mask their autism, and they learn to copy their peers. And they learn...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: To mimic⁴.

HOANG: ...To mimic, yes. And as I was reading, I was - I was thinking about all the things that I do. You know, I tap my teeth. But I tap them because no one can see - because if you move your fingers or you move your body or you rock in your chair, then people will see. And that's not good. It has to be secret. And there are so many things like that that I've done and that I've been hiding so unconsciously - or subconsciously⁵, I guess. And that kind of put me on this journey where I started to explore, could I be on the spectrum? And this all kind of happened as I was drafting this book.

And the more I learned about myself, the better I could write this character. Her name is Stella. And - but then as I wrote Stella, I - you know, I was learning about myself as I wrote her. So it was like this reciprocal process. That's how the diagnosis⁶ came to be and how the character came to be. We kind of happened at the same time.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What made you want to revisit having an autistic main character for this book?

HOANG: There was this website I looked at. And I don't want to tell you what it is because I don't want to drive traffic there. But it - basically, they say that autistic people are heartless and that we don't experience empathy. We are selfish and cold. And anyone who's had a relationship could go on there and kind of air their grievances⁷ and say how horrible it was. And - and I am sure that those situations exist. But I - I can't accept that that's a rule.

So Khai, this character, was born from that injustice⁸. I wanted to write a character and show how he may look cold. He may look heartless. And he might even think he's heartless, but he's not. And I wanted to show what that disconnect is and how different people experience emotions and process emotions in different ways and that it's not - there isn't a one right way.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, I read an interview where you said you were told you had a stone heart when you were younger.

HOANG: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And that's actually a line that you give Khai in the book. That must have been a hard thing to hear.

HOANG: Yes. It was exactly like I wrote it in the book. You know, I was walking home from school with my cousin. And he - I don't remember what we were talking about. But it came up that I had a stone heart because nothing bothered me. And I - you know, I didn't care about anything, and - and I didn't have feelings.

And - and it's really stuck with me because I thought, well, that's not true. I do have feelings. I don't act like everyone else, but it's there. I can feel them sometimes. Sometimes it gets too much, and it's confusing. Or when the emotions get too big, then I feel that I will shut down. And then I need time, I think.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There are, as you know, so many people who are autistic. And there is such a wide spectrum of how people experience that but very few stories that show them sort of living and loving and succeeding. And your book changes that. Why is it important to tell that story for you?

HOANG: Well, I think it's important for these characters, for - especially for, you know, me, personally. I want to believe that I can be a main character, I can be a leading character in my life, that I can have a happily ever after, that I can find true love. And I can get married and conquer and be happy.

And I think one thing for my books is, yes, my characters have sexual intimacy⁹. And I think that's also important, to show autistic people can have these very full lives and experience things that regular people do. I sometimes run into people who find my portrayal¹⁰ to be offensive...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Really?

HOANG: ...And insensitive by giving people normal lives, which - which is - it kind of breaks my heart every time I hear that because I'm married. I have kids. My husband loves me as a woman. I am a woman. And - and I have the same needs and desires as anybody else.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Helen Hoang is the author of "The Bride Test." Thank you so much.

HOANG: Thank you.

1 seduce   

vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱

参考例句：

• She has set out to seduce Stephen.她已经开始勾引斯蒂芬了。
• Clever advertising would seduce more people into smoking.巧妙策划的广告会引诱更多的人吸烟。

2 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

3 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

4 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

5 subconsciously   

ad.下意识地，潜意识地

参考例句：

• In choosing a partner we are subconsciously assessing their evolutionary fitness to be a mother of children or father provider and protector. 在选择伴侣的时候，我们会在潜意识里衡量对方将来是否会是称职的母亲或者父亲，是否会是合格的一家之主。
• Lao Yang thought as he subconsciously tightened his grasp on the rifle. 他下意识地攥紧枪把想。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

6 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

7 grievances   

n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚

参考例句：

• The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers. 工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He gave air to his grievances. 他申诉了他的冤情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

9 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

10 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
• The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。