American Normal

Asperger''s has never been clearly defined, bordering autism on one side and high intelligence and verbal eccentricity on the other. The disease is a kind of cultural lightning rod. First, it''s a condition onto which we project the very real and well-founded fears of social isolation inherent in mental illness. But also attached to it is a kind of admiration and envy and (among those who suffer from Asperger''s) a kind of elitism, a sense of being one of the elect, in a world mainly peopled by neurotypicals.