Word: karasik
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ride Together: A Brother and Sister's Memoir of Autism in the Family (Washington Square Press; 200 pp.; $20) by Judy and Paul Karasik alternates prose chapters written by Judy with comix by Paul. The resulting tag-team style provides two sides of a family's story of growing up with an autistic older brother. David Karasik, born in the 1940s, was first diagnosed as having "aphasia," or being "brain damaged," long before autism became a concept that TIME magazine would put on its cover. As the Karasiks describe him, David struggles to put order to a world that arrives...
...title indicates, "Ride Together" focuses less on the particular mysteries of David in favor of the more general family history which included him. So we get chapters about Paul's pranks at school, family poker games and the arrival of an elderly aunt. The warm-heartedness of the Karasik family (the parents became advocates for the mentally disabled) extends out of the page and pulls you in. In an age of broken families the Karasik's generous spirit can be quite moving. Still, it's David who sets the family apart, and when he disappears into the background the book...
...David Karasik becomes agitated, bursting out the frame in "The Ride Together...
...comix chapters by Paul Karasik (a former associate editor of "RAW" magazine and co-author of the graphic novel version of Paul Auster's "City of Glass") get as close to an explanation of David's inner life one can hope to. One clever chapter is narrated by Gorilla Watson, an "Adventures of Superman" bad guy who David refers to repeatedly. Gorilla explains that while everything outside David's head is splintered, "Inside it's as tidy and rich as Fort Knox." At the end, in a sad twist the final panel shows Gorilla behind bars with David, calling...
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