Sibling Revelry

Long before Judy and Paul Karasik were book collaborators, they were sister and brother. In fact, The Ride Together, their heartfelt and groundbreaking memoir of growing up with an autistic sibling, sprung from their closeness as children and adults. "We were lucky to live in a household where people took care of things," Judy said. "If you see a wrapper on the ground, you pick it up. If someone needs help, you give it."

Each recorded their experiences as best they knew how: Judy, a former book editor, contributed prose chapters, and Paul, a cartoonist, offered sections in comic-book form. The combination works: readers not only get an idea of how David Karasik sees the world, but they also gain insight into how a disability affects a family and the way it communicates.

"The stories were developed independently, as half-baked ideas," Paul said. "At one point, we had amassed a fair amount of material, and we thought we'd make copies for our kids. Then we realized that we had some pretty powerful material and that it would make the type of book that we would have wanted around when we were growing up."

David, now 54, was diagnosed with autism when only the most severe children were identified and very little was known about the condition. But neither he nor autism is the book's main subject. Admitted nonexperts, Judy and Paul chose instead to focus on their coming of age in David's proximity, thereby giving voice to other people who have struggled with an autistic loved one.

Due out in January from Washington Square Press (see review in the print issue, p. 88), The Ride joins a crowded field of autism memoirs, but most are parent-authored and, consequently, often sentimental and/or laden with medical information. The Karasiks, on the other hand, offer a distance and omniscience that will appeal to general readers. "I have a lot of strange brothers, and in some ways, David is just one of them," Judy said. "Being David's sister has been inconvenient in many ways, but basicall a good thing."

Graphic novels have also exploded in popularity, so the book has a good selling point. While organizing it was difficult (Judy and Paul found themselves shuffling and reshuffling papers à la David), the final product reads smoothly. The prose and comic sections play off each other and serve different functions. "Judy's chapters tended to move time forward in a more lyrical way, while mine tend to halt the progress of time," Paul said.

The comics also provide images of David and his behavior that crystallize in the reader's mind. We see that David is different, but not so different perhaps. Ultimately, this is a work about the way that people talk to each other, so it makes sense that the Karasiks used their respective formats. "Even if the book wouldn't have been published, it has been very therapeutic for my family," Paul said. All in all, a bumpy ride but a satisfying one nonetheless.