Quirky Characters: A Guest Post from Jeff Cohen

We welcome Jeff Cohen, author of the Asperger's Mystery Series (and the latest release, THE QUESTION OF THE ABSENTEE FATHER) to Midnight Ink's blog today! Here he shares how quirky characters in the media are becoming more prevalent...and why that's so great.

These days it feels like we are inundated in popular culture with depictions of people with characteristics that are described as being on the autism spectrum. A young man's family deals with his autism (which probably would have been diagnosed as Asperger's syndrome until recently) on the Netflix series Atypical. A young physician has autism (see previous parenthetical expression) and savant syndrome on the new drama The Good Doctor. There is a Muppet with autism on Sesame Street.

That's just scratching the surface. Books, films, video games, and comics are all dealing with autism in one way or another, and then there are the depictions of characters whose spectrum disorders—if you choose to see them that way—are not diagnosed or mentioned. The popular Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper is now headlining two situation comedies in which his "quirky" behavior is played for laughs.

All that is absolutely fine. There was a time not long ago when no one understood that those "oddballs" among them might actually have a difference in their brains. Autism was rarely discussed and not often diagnosed. Asperger's syndrome was barely heard about before the 1990s.

And it is good that depictions of people with autism are not all the same. The word "spectrum" isn't used arbitrarily; the effects of autism on a personality fall into a very broad range of behaviors. Some people with autism are perfectly verbal, in fact to the point that they seem difficult to stop from talking. Others have no words at all. In between there are countless shades of difference.

So when we decided to start a mystery series surrounding a man with Asperger's syndrome (which was a diagnosis when we started), we wanted to find a way to make our books stand out but also to offer a depiction that wasn't what every other such story might be. So we let our character Samuel Hoenig speak for himself.

The books are written as first-person narratives, meaning Samuel is telling you the story himself. Everything that happens in the course of the tale will be filtered through Samuel's perspective. And he will tell you what he's thinking at any given point.

For example, in the newest novel in the series, The Question of the Absentee Father, Samuel, who runs a business called Questions Answered (and that's what it is), is asked a question he'd rather not answer—his mother wants to know where Samuel's father, who left the family when his son was only four, is living now. And her behavior convinces Samuel that the matter is urgent.

Samuel has no feelings about his father. That's not because of his Asperger's syndrome; the idea that people with spectrum characteristics have no emotions is false. To Samuel, his father's absence for twenty-seven years has simply served to remove Reuben Hoenig from Samuel's life, and that makes him irrelevant.

But his associate Janet Washburn—with whom Samuel is developing a slowly building unprofessional relationship—convinces him it's important to find Reuben even if Samuel doesn't see the need. That will require that Samuel leave his comfortable routine, something he absolutely doesn't want to do, and eventually leads Samuel, Janet, and Samuel's friend Mike the taxicab driver to Los Angeles.

And that, Samuel will tell you, is when things start to get weird.

***

"WHERE IS YOUR FATHER LIVING NOW?"

Samuel Hoenig, proprietor of a business called Questions Answered, doesn't have strong feelings about his estranged father. After all, you can't miss what you never had. But when Samuel's mother receives an enigmatic letter and asks him where his father lives, Samuel is duty bound to provide an answer.

Unfortunately, answering this question means taking a trip to Los Angeles with his associate, Ms. Washburn. The personality traits of Asperger's Syndrome make flying across the country a major challenge for Samuel. Little does he know that as troubling as flying is, it's nothing compared to the danger they'll face when they land.

Praise:
"The reader has the satisfaction of getting a mystery, a romp, and a respectful treatment of a neuroatypical protagonist."—Publishers Weekly

"Fans coast to coast can take pleasure in seeing Copperman's quirky hero remain his rational, literal self, even out in fabulous La La Land."—Kirkus Reviews




E.J. Copperman and Jeff Cohen write the Asperger's mystery series featuring Samuel Hoenig and his business Questions Answered. The latest installment, The Question of the Absentee Father, publishes in October.