Lisa Genova's Blog, page 4

I bought this notebook as a treat to myself. I love it--the words on the cover*, the size, its bendable frame. I'm hoping it inspires me to pick it up every day, to write Morning Pages and jot down ideas, capturing those flashes of divine lightning that will become Love Anthony.

I'm already in love with this book I haven't written yet, and I'm terrified of it. I need to release the fear surrounding this book, this topic of autism. Lisa, be fearless. I give you permission to write this story. Don't worry about whether it will please everyone--it won't. Make sure Tracey loves it--you don't have to please anyone else.

I need to figure out how this book begins. All books begin in the middle of something--these characters are already alive and moving around, doing something, feeling something.

What am I in the middle of doing? Today I'm going to yoga, the grocery store, I'm watching an autism video, and I'm interviewing Corinne Murphy about ABA therapy tonight at 7:00. I need to go through my notebooks and notes from interviews and organize them, see what I have, what I know.

This book is going to be challenging. Olivia is in present time and sharing flashbacks. Through journal entries? Put them in italics--like in The Paris Wife? I think so. And Beth's novel will be Anthony's voice. This will be first person, present tense, different font.

I need to organize the story so that it flows from one character, one piece of the puzzle, one revelation to the next without confusion. All threads need to tie. I really do love how difficult this is--I love the challenge of it. People talk about writing fiction as being so right brain, using your creative mind. But it also requires a lot of left brain--the pace, the plot points, the rhythm--these elements seem analytical to me.

Again, how do I begin this story? I think both women go to the mailbox on the same morning--Beth receives a letter that will change her life, and Olivia receives some of Anthony's rocks.

Olivia will remember receiving news that changed her life--Anthony has autism. Dr. asked her, "How's your marriage?" Thought it was good at the time, normal good, fighting-making up. She thought at the time--this will either force us to get close or tear us apart. It put pressure on all the fault lines that had been dormant, unbothered, unnoticed before autism. They had never been great at communicating, at leaning on each on each other, resolving problems, but it had never much mattered before. Before. After, it mattered, and they didn't have what it took to survive. She wonders if she has contributed to the statistics--1 in 70 boys, 80% of marriages with an autistic child will end in divorce. She's part of a large and growing population, but that doesn't do a damn thing about the loneliness; she feels no comfort in being included in this crowd. She's a woman, not a statistic.

So begin it with Beth walking to the mailbox, noticing another woman. It is Olivia, and they are strangers noticing each other. This is where their lives, already in motion, begin to intersect.


* On the cover of this notebook: "First it begins inside your heart. Something moves. Then opens. Then frees itself. And now you feel a rhythm breaking its long silence. This is going to be good."

Duxbury, Medfield mothers praise “Love Anthony,” a novel about an autistic boy

By Nancy Harris
Globe Correspondent / November 21, 2012
Thank you, Nancy, for this great review.

It can be simple to provide a medical definition for autism, as part of a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders that are typically characterized by difficulties with communication, social impairment, and repetitive behavior.

But most people — in or out of the medical profession — have little understanding of what it’s like to have the disorder or to live with a child who does.

There are two local women, however, who have intimate knowledge of autism, and they called my attention to a recently released novel, “Love Anthony,” by best-selling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova.

Andrea Brandeis and Marjorie Walsh are cofounders of the Center for Children with Special Needs of Massachusetts, a Weymouth-based private agency that provides much-needed advocacy in school systems for children with a range of special educational and emotional needs.

Brandeis is a Duxbury mother of three teenage children, two of whom have special needs, and has been active in the field for nearly a decade. Walsh, a Medfield resident, has more than 10 years of experience as a special education advocate, and has helped families throughout Massachusetts with children of varying disabilities. She also is the parent of two grown, college-educated children who required special-needs services throughout their schooling.

Both women have the highest praise for “Love Anthony,” which tells the story of two Massachusetts women searching for a way to move forward in their lives after a loss.

In Genova’s novel, Olivia Donatelli is grieving the death of her 10-year-old son, Anthony. After Anthony was diagnosed with autism at age 3, their lives revolved around doctor’s appointments, speech therapists, and behavioral experts — all to no avail.

As the years passed, however, Olivia found herself less and less trying to “fix” her son, and began to discover moments of joy and triumph with Anthony. But then he dies unexpectedly.

Olivia goes from her Hingham home to Nantucket after the death of Anthony, and the breakup of her marriage.

Similarly, Beth Ellis has seen her life change, and not for the better. A note left by a vindictive woman, saying “I’m sleeping with Jimmy,” has put an end to her marriage and her comfortable Nantucket life, plunging her into single motherhood with three girls.

Beth rediscovers writing, a creative aspect that had been packed away with the birth of her daughters. In a chance meeting with Olivia, Beth discovers a story waiting to be told, and the voice that both women need to hear and learn from is young Anthony’s.

In a recent conversation, Genova, a Cape Cod resident who is the mother of children ages 12, 4, and 2, said her novel is a very personal story.

The character of Anthony was inspired by her cousin’s son. As new mothers, Genova and her cousin spent a lot of time together with their babies, and by the time the children were a year old, it became clear that her cousin’s son wasn’t saying a word. At 20 months, they worried he might be deaf, and a year after that, the cousin learned that her son was on the nonverbal end of the autistic spectrum.

“I was there to witness the crashing of all their dreams and hopes and to see the stages of grief unfold,’’ Genova said. “But in time, I also began to witness something exceptional, which is that even though my cousin and her child didn’t have the benefit of all the meaningful ways parents and children rely upon to connect with one another, such as eye contact or physical bonding, what grew into place was simply extraordinary.
“And what I witnessed firsthand was unconditional love.”

From this experience, Genova went on to conduct research with specialists in the field as well as dozens of parents with children who fall somewhere within the autistic spectrum.

“One of my goals with writing ‘Love Anthony’ was to create voices that everyone could hear and relate to, in both the mother and the child. In so doing, I hoped to bring attention to a condition like autism, which is often misunderstood, feared, and even ignored. I wanted to help readers see the humanity inherent in a family’s struggles with it.”

Brandeis and Walsh agree that “Love Anthony” fully accomplishes this goal.

“In my professional life, I live and breathe the experience of families dealing with autism,’’ Brandeis said. “Genova’s imagery of Anthony feeling the weight of his body as he swings over and over again in ecstasy, or lining up his favorite white rocks, or endlessly staring at the blue sky reminds me that there is great joy in being Anthony, and that he doesn’t feel isolated, or different, or the pressure to fit in. This is such a great message to take away.”

She added that the book isn’t clinical, and is accessible to anyone. The key lesson, she says, is that “we all have an inherent desire to connect, even the autistic child himself — and that child may find ways to reach out that are neither typical nor comfortable for us . . . but they are genuine attempts nonetheless.”

Similarly, Walsh said: “I connected to Genova’s portrayal of the mother so much. The social isolation for moms of autistic children is very real. Genova reminds us that when the play dates begin to disappear, along with casual conversations on the playground, or opportunities to attend family functions, a mother also loses her support system and a means of socializing.’’

Genova hopes that in reading “Love Anthony,” everyone will be able to relate to elements in this mother and son’s day-to-day relationship, so that over time, autism and other conditions on the spectrum, such as Asperger’s syndrome, will no longer be the source of stigma, fear, or isolation.

One excellent source of information on autism spectrum disorders, Genova said, is “The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism,” at www.thinkingautismguide.com.

Nancy Harris, a practicing clinical psychologist, can be reached at dr.nancy23@ gmail.com.

Anthony's Rocks - 1/30/12

I have about two months left to finish LOVE ANTHONY. Two months of writing, and then I need to edit, edit, edit, make sure the story WORKS, make sure I've told the truth. Please, God, let the story work. Please, when it's done, let the story leave the reader with resonance, thinking, stunned, wowed.

But I have A LOT left to write before it's done, and I'm scared. How do I get there from here? Lisa, you know the answer to this--word by word. See what's in front of you and keep going. Today you are writing about Anthony's rocks, and THAT IS ALL. Don't get ahead of yourself. Yes, the end is near, but you can't see it yet. You can't skip over this part and be done. You have to write every word before you get to write THE END.

How great is that going to feel? I remember exactly how I felt when I declared the first drafts of STILL ALICE and LEFT NEGLECTED done. Euphoric. Like giving birth. Unburdened. Like I could finally exhale.

It's not long now. Two more months. You're almost there. Write about Anthony's rocks. His pebbles. His beach stones. That's all. Today is not THE END. So stop thinking about that and write.

Thank you, Jessica Durham – Books & Reviews

Lisa Genova's new novel, although fiction, brings a story to life about a boy with autism and makes it feel real.

Gallery Books published "Love Anthony" on Sept. 25. The 309-page book is described:

I'm always hearing about how my brain doesn't work right. . . . But it doesn't feel broken to me.

Olivia Donatelli's dream of a "normal" life shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. Understanding the world from his perspective felt bewildering, nearly impossible. He didn't speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony died.

Now she's alone in a cottage on Nantucket, separated from her husband, desperate to understand the meaning of her son's short life, when a chance encounter with another woman facing her own loss brings Anthony alive again for Olivia in a most unexpected way.

Beth Ellis's entire life changed with a simple note: "I'm sleeping with Jimmy." Fourteen years of marriage. Three beautiful daughters. Yet even before her husband's affair, she had never felt so alone. Heartbroken, she finds the pieces of the vivacious, creative person she used to be packed away in a box in her attic. For the first time in years, she uncaps her pen, takes a deep breath, and begins to write. The young but exuberant voice that emerges onto the page is a balm to the turmoil within her, a new beginning, and an astonishing bridge back to herself.

In a piercing story about motherhood, autism, and love, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change and the irrepressible young boy whose unique wisdom helps them both find the courage to move on.

In a recent interview, Genova focuses on themes than examine the diseases and disorders that affect the brain because she is a Harvard-trained neuroscientist.

"I'm really lucky, I think," Genova said of her former vocation, according to the Canadian Press. "All my books are extensively researched. And it's great to be able to have the credibility to talk to anybody you want to."

"Still Alice," her first book, focused on a woman dealing with Alzheimers. Her grandmother inspired the character. In "Left Neglected," the story focused on a woman who had a traumatic brain injury that resulted in no feeling on her left side.

Genova revealed that her cousin's child, a 12-year-old with autism named Anthony, was the inspiration for the novel. She also got divorced and is now a single mom.

So I do have a really strong personal connection to this story," Genova said.

When asked if she would continue writing books of the same theme, which is conditions dealing with the brain, she said, "As a neuroscientist who has become a novelist, that's kind of the unique thing I bring to fiction, so I like writing about neuroscience.

"I have no plans to abandon that, but at the same time ... this one is much less in the neuroscience genre than the other two," she said of "Love Anthony." "I really feel like in my first two books I was a neuroscientist writing a novel. But in this book, I really think I became a novelist."

Genova's next novel will focus on someone with Huntington's disease.

Ms. Mary Mack - Book Talk: Lisa Genova’s “Love Anthony”

Thank you, Ms. Mary Mack, for this great interview!

As a writer, I’m always up for chatting about books. Talking to another writer, specifically about her own novel is big bonus. So when I got the chance to do a Q&A with neuroscientist-turned-New York Times Bestselling author Lisa Genova about her new book, all I needed was a cup of tea and piece of perfectly-buttered toast to make it completely golden.

Love Anthony, Genova’s third book, is about autism and — more important — acceptance. Genova, also a mother, hopes that the book “breaks through some of the stigma and barriers surrounding autism” to remind us that “we are all worthy of unconditional love.”

Q: From neuroscientist to novelist, how does that happen?

Lisa Genova: It’s a long, strange road. My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 85 in 1998. As the neuroscientist in my large extended Italian family, I tried to read everything I could about Alzheimer’s in order to pass that education along to my aunts who were her caregivers. I learned a lot of helpful information, but everything I read was written by a clinician or a scientist or a caregiver. They were all views from the outside looking in. What about my grandmother’s perspective? What does it feel like to have Alzheimer’s? Unfortunately, my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s was too far along, and she wasn’t able to communicate her answer. But the seed was planted. I thought I’d try to write a novel someday about a woman with Alzheimer’s and tell the story from her point of view. But I wasn’t a writer, so I thought this “someday” would be in some far-off future, when I was retired and there would be little risk.

Someday came much sooner. I left my job as a biotechnology/pharmaceutical company strategy consultant in 2000 when my oldest daughter was born. I planned to return to work when she turned one, but my marriage had begun unraveling, and I didn’t go back. In 2004 I was divorced and needed to go back to work. But I hesitated. What do I want my life to look like now that everything has changed? Why do I have to go back to science or strategy consulting? If I could do anything I wanted, what would that be? My answer — write the book. So instead of doing the responsible and sane thing, I dropped my four-year-old daughter at preschool, drove to Starbucks, and began writing Still Alice.

Q: Your novel deals with some heavy, sad subjects — autism, love, loss, death — did you talk to real women, other mothers, going through some of these profound issues in order to tell this story?

LG: I did. When I think about the conversations I had with these mothers, I’m still overwhelmed with gratitude. These women were so open, so willing to share the most uncertain and vulnerable parts of their lives and their children with me, not knowing how I might use that information. They gave me an enormous amount of trust. I never took this lightly. In addition to teaching me about autism, they taught me lessons in compassion, acceptance, resilience, and unconditional love.

Q: How much did you rely on your neuroscience and research background to write this book, and help guide the reader through the complexities and mysteries of the human brain?

LG: As of today in 2012, we know frustratingly, embarrassingly little about the neuroscience of autism. When I began the research for this book, I looked through The Principles of Neuroscience, the core textbook, the neurological Bible of my graduate school days at Harvard in the 90s, and there’s no mention of autism. Not a single word. It’s not referenced, in fact, in any of my Harvard texts. The current research on gene expression, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, and circuitry is too early, not definitive, unknown.

Autism today is still very much in the hands of psychiatry and psychology, in nomenclature and behavior. How do we organize the symptoms? What should we call them? How do we manage them through behavior modification? Psychiatrists prescribe inadequate medications. Psychologists administer Applied Behavioral Analysis.

Our understanding of autism is mostly limited to a discussion of restricted, repetitive behaviors and deficits in social communication. But what are the altered neural connections and molecules responsible for these symptoms? Neuroscience doesn’t yet know. So I couldn’t rely on my neuroscience background to write this story, and in that sense, it was a scary book for me to write.

Q: What was the most difficult part of writing Love Anthony, as opposed to your two previous novels, which also dealt with brain conditions? (Still Alice focused on a woman with Alzheimer’s, and Left Neglected, about the rare and extreme neuropsychological condition called Left Neglect.)

LG: When I was writing Still Alice and Left Neglected, I always felt like I could lean on my neuroscience background when I needed it. I could go to the textbooks and the medical community for scientific information about Alzheimer’s or Neglect and traumatic brain injury, and, as a neuroscientist, I found this comforting. And inspiration often began with the neuroscience. For example, the very first paragraph of Still Alice is essentially a description of apoptosis.
With Love Anthony, I was very much aware that I was writing without this safety net. There is no neuroscience textbook on autism. So I really had to leave my comfort zone. And the structure of this story is far more complex than my previous two books. With Still Alice and Left Neglected, I was a neuroscientist writing a novel. With Love Anthony, I became a novelist.

Q: What do you hope parents of children with autism might come away with after reading your novel? Is there a hopeful message?

LG: I hope that parents of children with autism feel that I got it right, that while every person with autism is different, that I captured some of what they experience in this book. And maybe that helps them feel acknowledged and less alone.

For readers who don’t know autism, I hope they gain a better understanding of it. When we hear the statistics (one in 88) or when we learn about the DSM reclassification or the scientific research, the information tends to stay in our heads. It’s important and necessary knowledge, but there is more to understand. Through Love Anthony, readers get to learn about HUMAN BEINGS living with autism, and what we learn then also lives in our hearts. Then we have more than knowledge. We have empathy and maybe the motivation to get involved, the inspiration to make a positive difference.I hope Love Anthony breaks through some of the stigma and barriers surrounding autism by creating an opportunity, through fiction, for people to see and feel the ways in which we are all connected and worthy of unconditional love.

Q: Have you already started on another book?

LG: Yes. My next novel will be about a genetic neurodegenerative disease called Huntington’s and fate.

Thanks for your time, Lisa, and congratulations on Love Anthony.

Thank you!

Thank you, Sheryl Ubelacker of the Canadian Press for this great article about Love Anthony.

TORONTO - Lisa Genova has what she describes as a "beautiful" home office overlooking a salt-water river in Cape Cod, a tranquil setting that almost any author would kill to call their own.

But surprisingly, this picturesque milieu is not where the Massachusetts novelist, who has just published her third book, chooses to write.

The mother of three children, including a two-year-old daughter and four-year-old son, trundles off each weekday to her local Starbucks to settle in for a few hours of writing after dropping the little ones off at pre-school.

"I can't be at home, they'll find me," Genova says of her kids during a recent phone interview from Boston, where she was visiting relatives.

"Or I'll think, 'What's in the refrigerator?' Or 'I should do a load of laundry' or 'I should clean up all those toys.'

"So I just get out of there."

Yet there is nothing idyllic about her local coffee purveyor, Genova insists.

"I'm not even in a beautiful Starbucks. Our Starbucks is inside a Stop and Shop. I'm like literally in the produce section of a supermarket," she admits with an infectious laugh. "It's so not glamorous, it's so not like beautiful Cape Cod. It's the opposite of that."

Still, it's an environment that has given rise to Genova's most recent novel, "Love Anthony," a poignant exploration of the mysteries of autism as seen through the eyes of a non-verbal 12-year-old boy with the disorder — or rather, through a stranger who has somehow tuned into the working of the child's mind.

Genova is well-placed to grapple with such a complex topic.

As with her previous novels, the Harvard-trained neuroscientist has focused on themes that examine the diseases and disorders that can affect the brain.

Her debut novel, "Still Alice," centred on a woman dealing with the progressive destruction of her mind and memory from Alzheimer's, a character inspired by her grandmother who was diagnosed with the disease. In "Left Neglected," the main character contends with a traumatic brain injury that has left her with no sense of the left side of her body or the objects that inhabit that sphere.

"I'm really lucky, I think," Genova says of her former vocation. "All my books are extensively researched. And it's great to be able to have the credibility to talk to anybody you want to."

That has meant being able to pick the brains of expert clinicians, among them the chief of neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"Likewise, with each book I've been able to get inside the community of people, both medical and the families who live with this," she says of neurological disorders. "And I think the neuroscience background gives people reassurance that they're talking to someone who has done their homework and is taking this information seriously and responsibly.

"So it just allows me to get in the door."

Even so, writing about a child with an autism spectrum disorder was a daunting task because so little is known about the underpinnings of the conditions.

"We are really in the infancy of understanding the neurobiology, the neuroanatomy, the neurochemistry or the neurophysiology of autism," she explains.
"So as a neuroscientist, I didn't have a whole lot to hang my hat on with autism. But there's a little bit. We understand a little bit about how the brain is disorganized."

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which include autism and Asperger syndrome, are often marked by difficulties with social interaction, communication problems, repetitive behaviours and interests, and cognitive delays.

Genova says various brain functions in people with ASD seem to be compartmentalized — what she describes as separate rooms off a hallway in "Love Anthony" — and lack the neurological connections needed to bring them together into functional harmony.

"So your vision is not connected to hearing, to memory, to emotions," she says, explaining one theory of how the autistic brain may work. "So I took sort of a poetic licence or a literary licence there and tried to imagine how that might be."

The result, "Love Anthony," is not only an imaginary — and possibly elucidating — journey through the corridors of an autistic child's mind, but it is also a story about love: between parent and child, between husband and wife, and for oneself.

Although a prolific author — "Love Anthony" is her third novel published in three years — Genova didn't grow up with a unquenchable desire to write.

Indeed, her lifelong ambition was to become a scientist.

"I didn't really take any writing classes. I took one English class in my freshman year in college. I've always been a reader ... I love reading everything, both fiction and non-fiction."

After earning her PhD, she spent a year doing research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, then worked two years in Boston as a strategy consultant for the health-care industry.

After her daughter Alena, now 12, was born in 2000, she ended up not going back to work: her marriage had started unravelling and it ended three years later.

"So now I'm a divorced, single mom. I really should have gone back to my old job, which paid really well. I liked it. I was good at it."

But with her life shaken up and her future uncertain, Genova says she "started asking questions like: 'What do I want to do now? What do I want my life to look like? And why do I have to go back to my old job?'

"'If I could do anything I wanted to do, what would that be?' And my answer was I really wanted to try to write this book."

During her penning of "Still Alice" — she literally starts writing her novels by hand in a notebook, then bit by bit transfers the story to her laptop — Genova started dating, remarried and had her two youngest children, Ethan and Stella.

The book was a quest to answer the question: how does a person with Alzheimer's, like her grandmother, feel as their personal history slowly and relentlessly slips away?

"And for some reason I thought that writing a novel would get at that ... stories are what move us emotionally, and I thought maybe that could be a place where that question could be explored."

Initially self-published and sold out of the trunk of her car, "Still Alice" garnered a glowing review in the Boston Sunday Globe, which led to Genova signing an agent and inking a book deal with Simon and Schuster. The same publishing house is behind "Love Anthony," now out in Canada.

While "Love Anthony" isn't biographical, Genova's own experiences going through divorce and writing a first novel parallel those of the two main characters.

Her cousin's child, a 12-year-old with autism named Anthony, was the inspiration for the novel, she says. "So I do have a really strong personal connection to this story."

The subject of her next novel is Huntington's disease, a genetic disorder that causes parts of the brain to die, leading to progressive physical and cognitive decline, and eventually death. Symptoms typically don't appear until mid-adulthood.

Since children of an affected parent have a 50-50 chance of inheriting the Huntington's gene, they must decide whether to have genetic testing and learn their fate, says Genova, whose novel will explore that agonizing choice.

So with four works of fiction dealing with afflictions of the brain, does she plan to continue on the same theme in future endeavours?

"As a neuroscientist who has become a novelist, that's kind of the unique thing I bring to fiction, so I like writing about neuroscience.

"I have no plans to abandon that, but at the same time ... this one is much less in the neuroscience genre than the other two," she says of "Love Anthony."

"I really feel like in my first two books I was a neuroscientist writing a novel. But in this book, I really think I became a novelist."

Thank you, Indigo Fiction Blog and Simon and Schuster Canada for facilitating this interview.

From the author of Heather's Pick Still Alice and the bestselling Left Neglected comes Love Anthony: a novel of family, autism, and unconditional love. Two women, both enduring heartbreak, meet and make a life changing connection. Olivia is mourning the recent death of her 8-year-old autistic son, and Beth is adjusting to the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. Both women find themselves connecting, and helping each other to heal and move on. The Indigo Fiction Blog is pleased to present this interview with the author of this heartfelt and extraordinary novel.

Q: Anthony’s voice is so well crafted and believable. What kind of research did you have to do in order to convey a young autistic boy’s point of view so authentically?

Lisa Genova (LG): Thank you. I did a lot of research on autism for this novel. I read as many books, blogs, and research articles as I could both before and while I was writing Love Anthony —from fiction to memoir to clinical texts. I interviewed physicians, behavioral therapists, an EMT, and people who’ve experienced seizures. The most important research involved talking with parents of children (age 3-17) with autism. These conversations were intensely personal, raw, honest, and generous. I can’t thank these parents enough for what they shared with me. And my cousin’s son has nonverbal autism, so I also have a deeply personal connection.

Q: The subject matter in your previous books, Still Alice and Left Neglected, was based firmly in the scientific world. In Love Anthony you take a departure from this and deal with a theme that is a bit more fantastical. Can you touch on this briefly?

LG: When I was writing Still Alice and Left Neglected, I always felt like I could lean on my neuroscience background when I needed it. I could go to the textbooks and the medical community for scientific information about Alzheimer’s or Neglect and traumatic brain injury, and, as a fledgling writer, I found this comforting. And inspiration often began with the neuroscience. For example, the very first paragraph of Still Alice is essentially a description of apoptosis.

With Love Anthony, I was very much aware that I was writing without this safety net. There is no neuroscience textbook on autism. Scientifically and clinically speaking, we’re only beginning to understand what autism is. Most physicians were taught essentially nothing about it when they were in medical school. In 2012, we’re still in the infancy of elucidating the neuroscience of autism, and so I really had to leave my comfort zone to write this story. With Still Alice and Left Neglected, I was a neuroscientist writing a novel. With Love Anthony, I became a novelist.

Q: Where did you get the idea to write about a deceased autistic boy's story as told through the conduit of a middle-aged woman?

LG: The inspiration to write about a boy with nonverbal autism comes from my cousin’s son, Anthony. The story of Love Anthony came to me in a meditation.

Q: Both of your female lead characters discover a strength they didn’t know they possessed. Did you struggle with giving Beth a happy ending with Jimmy?

LG: Yes! This was probably the most unanswered question in the book while I was writing it. Will Beth forgive Jimmy and take him back, or will she leave him? Right up until she decided, I honestly didn’t know what she would do! My aunts, a friend, my husband, my editor, and my agent were reading along as I wrote the book, and they all had different opinions. Thankfully, I realized that the answer Beth was looking for would have to come from Anthony. And then, her decision and her ending became obvious.

Q: Love Anthony is as much about autism as it is about love, marriage and relationships. Were any of the characters or the relationships in the novel based on real people?

LG: This book began with Anthony, a boy with autism who doesn’t speak, inspired by my cousin’s beautiful autistic son, Anthony. My cousin and I are close, and my oldest daughter and Anthony are the same age. We spent much of their baby and early childhood years together. So, as with Still Alice, this story sprang from a deeply personal place.
I’ve also been divorced, and I definitely drew from that experience when writing about Olivia and David. And I so adore Beth’s relationship with her girlfriends. I’ve always had amazing women in my life to love.

Q: Are there particular authors who have inspired your writing? Who are the literary giants, past or present, that you esteem.

LG: My “literary” giants are probably not on any other writer’s list. Although I love Shakespeare and Hemingway, the writers who’ve inspired me most come from the neuroscience world—Oliver Sacks, Steven Pinker, Antonio Damasio, V.S. Ramachandran. I recently read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and really should add Rebecca Skloot to that list. Amazing story, brilliant writing!

Thank you, Shelf Awareness, 10/16/12

Love Anthony is a novel that compassionately yet honestly depicts the reality of being the parent of an autistic child. Set on the island of Nantucket in the off-season, Lisa Genova's story is both eye-opening and unforgettable. With a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, Genova knows her stuff from a technical standpoint; as a novelist, she adds an invigorating story, a fascinating setting and phenomenal supporting characters. Told from the point of view of a young mother, Olivia, who is grieving the death of her son Anthony, this book will pierce your heart.

However, that's not enough for the unstoppable Genova. She interweaves another tale into her novel, about a fellow Nantucket resident, Beth, who has recently learned her husband is having an affair. She kicks him out and rediscovers her passion for writing. The subject she tackles for her budding novel? What life is like for a boy with autism. Beth and Olivia form an almost mystical connection where they are able to begin healing from their respective heartbreaks in ways neither thought possible.

Genova delivers two riveting, brilliantly written tales of ordinary women facing extraordinary hardships; Beth's book-within-the-book further illuminates the struggle of raising a child with autism. Love Anthony has the power to transform any reader's assumptions regarding this mostly misunderstood disease.

--Natalie Papailiou, author of blog MILF: Mother I'd Like to Friend

Discover: Another not-to-be-missed novel from Genova (Left Neglected) that weaves together stories of marital infidelity, autism and unconditional love.

Thank you, Doug Karlson, for this great review of the Love Anthony book launch.

Neuro-novelist Lisa Genova chose her home town, Chatham, to launch a book tour for her latest work, “Love Anthony,” last night. Where the Sidewalk Ends bookstore was packed to the gills, with the crowd spilling out the front door into the courtyard. There were plenty of books on hand, and plenty of eager fans to buy signed copies. It’s no wonder, Genova’s first book, “Still Alice,” spent nearly a year on the New York Times bestseller list (she began by self publishing it, selling copies out of the trunk of her car), and this author has cultivated a legion of dedicated readers.

I haven’t yet read “Love Anthony,” as it was just released, but based on the two lengthy passages that the author read at the signing – they were well written, funny, insightful, original, engaging and touching – I predict this latest book will also find a secure foothold on the bestseller lists. All the more so given the growing attention being paid to autism.

In her talk, Genova said she agrees with Stephen King: writers don’t make stories up, they unearth them. For her third novel, which centers around an autistic child named Anthony, Genova said she was inspired by the son of her cousin, who suffers from the same condition.

One would think that topics like Alzheimer’s and autism would be depressing, and hard to read, but Genova creates strong characters that come to life and grab you. And the scientific aspects are fascinating.

When she began the research for “Love Anthony,” Genova turned to her graduate school textbooks (she studied neuroscience at Harvard in the 1990s) and was stunned to find that the word “autism” does not appear in the indexes. Her fellow neuroscientists told her they began confronting the epidemic of autism with very little understanding of it.

Yet clearly Genova has gained a good understanding of how autism affects those who suffer from it, and their families. She weaves that knowledge into her compelling narration from the point of view of Anthony and his mother. The crowd at Where the Sidewalk End listened rapt as Genova read.

Genova said she’s currently researching her next novel, which will be about Huntington’s disease. She explained that this is a disease that is purely genetic. Symptoms usually don’t develop until after the age of 30, so the disease is passed on unknowingly to children. Genova plans to weave a second narrative into her story – that of a woman who was hanged as a witch in Salem, but not before passing on the gene for the disease. That’s a fascinating literary device, and a great idea. Given that my own great-great-great…grandmother, Margaret Scott, was hanged at Gallows Hill in 1692, it looks like I’ll have to add another novel by Lisa Genova to my “to read” pile.

Notes from Italy, 11/15/11

I'm at Spannocchia (a 900-year-old farmhouse near Siena), sitting outside on a cool, sunny day at a rickety round table, about the size of a large pizza, on the lawn overlooking the hills of Tuscany.

They took the lemon trees inside yesterday. Winter is coming. The two cypress trees and bench that I woodblock printed with Sabra Field five years ago are to my left. I have such fondness for that time in my life. The last time I came to this magical place, I'd just finished STILL ALICE. And here I am again, this time in the middle of writing my third book.

I can smell lunch cooking. Onions and garlic. And fennel? Not sure. It smells delicious. People are chatting behind me on the terrace where we drank wine every evening five years ago. We don't drink there now because it's November and too cold (last time I was here, it was June).

A man is picking something from a tree and dropping it into a ceramic bowl. Something for dinner maybe. I love how connected Italians are to their land, the earth, their food. Back at home, my yard is a place where my kids play or ground that I walk over to get to the car. Here, it is tended to and touched daily. It is eaten. I like that. It's what we should be doing. Connection to the earth and what we eat, nourishing our environment and ourselves. At home, we go to the grocery store. We're disconnected from this process.

Connection and disconnection. LOVE ANTHONY is about this. Faith and loss of faith. Communication and silence. Connection and isolation. How do we love? What do we need in order to experience love?