The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman’s Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home

by Katherine May. Trapeze Press, 2018

This is a lovely exploration of May’s experience of coming to the realization, in her 30s, that she is autistic. There are beautiful descriptions of the English countryside and meditative explorations of May’s life up to the point where, driving late at night, she caught a radio program describing the lived experiences of autistic women and feeling a deep sense of familiarity and resonance.

I highly recommend this book to two audiences. The first type of person that may benefit from this book is anyone who is on the fence about the question of neurodiversity in their own lives. The book explores the ambivalence that May felt and teases apart some of the societal misconceptions that may be informing those. This book will help those who are trying to figure out where they land in the landscape of neurodivergence, not because it is prescriptive, but because it depicts the experience of questioning and normalizes it. The second audience that may benefit from this book is anyone who has felt deeply out of step with others but struggled to figure out why. This book may not solve the riddle for you, but it may give a few valuable data points as it maps someone else’s journey with the same.

To find about more about the author and the book, visit her site here.