A Neuro-atypical Life with High Functioning Autism

The Plot:
Michael Louden-West is a reclusive man who understands himself in debilitating detail, yet relates to the world outside his door only through social logic gleaned from old movies, especially science fiction thrillers and screwball romantic comedies. His house is his sanctuary until he comes to believe a terrifying and beautiful angel has invaded it. Lacking corporeal form, this entity assumes the guise of his memories: both real remembrances and those transposed from films. Michael is resolved to escape the labyrinth and the monster that has come to haunt it, yet he is torn for how to go about this. The advice of his philosophizing friend gets around the obstacle of his overly rational mind, while the advice of a mysterious woman circumvents the inhibitions of his “barely owned” body. Without knowing the true identity of his specter, Michael must choose which friend to follow, and regardless where his journey to self-discovery begins, his quest is the same as Biblical Jacob: He must wrestle his fiery angel to secure a blessing from a curse, and in so doing find the meaning of his life.

The protagonist in Icarus Transfigured is afflicted with a mild, undiagnosed form of autism, and the reader comes to know his predicament through a fantastical story: one not intended to conceal his true life but, rather, to reveal how his life requires a kind of fiction to be understood.

About Author:
Michael Lowell Teague is a painter, cartoonist, composer, and writer. He maintains two websites. Blenderkitty.com is a showcase for his art and music, while Aspergersdoorknob.com is a showcase for his writings, including his essays on autism as related to art and culture. He is best known for his alternative comics, which were featured in such anthologies as Zero Zero and Blurred Vision. He won a Xeric Award in 1999 for his self-published comic book, Epic Dermis. His comic strip, Blender Kitty, was regularly seen in The New York Press between 2001 and 2003.

Icarus Transfigured began as a work of speculative fiction in 2003, and it was not until the author was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 2007 that the protagonist in his story became more openly autobiographical. Autism not only informs the subject matter of the book, but the memoir/novel is itself an autistic creation.

"It was like him to fall in love with the lead actress and watch a film over and over again without cessation. His gushing heart would be uncritical in its initial praise, and only with over-familiarity would his eye wander off-script into peripheral details the filmmaker never intended for scrutiny. The fantasy, from there, would unravel from the inside out, beginning innocently when an untouched water pitcher would be noticed changing sides on a table during a conversation, and then onto the late discovery of a subtle tic in the actress’ facial mannerisms. Eventually it would come down to reading the lips of background characters, and finally spying the one guy in the crowd looking directly into the camera and mumbling, “I am the devil.” By then, he would be watching an entirely different movie: a movie so painfully familiar that it was completely alien." –from Chapter Twenty-two

"The friend chafed. 'I’m never anxious to meet any woman who will be your undoing.'

Michael frowned.

Omar justified himself. 'I don’t blame women for that, mind you. Domesticity makes women Nature’s natural ally in dragging the species down into mediocrity. Women save the race from the terminal fate of either being too cerebral or too dangerous to survive.'” –from Chapter Twenty-three

Why I am publishing my book on a website:
My creative life divides naturally between acts of mimicry and abstruseness. Resultantly, every reinvention of myself (composer, painter, cartoonist, writer…) has been marked by the same predicament: I am too avant-garde to be mainstream, and too mainstream to be avant-garde. In a world where success depends on how well you meet an expectation, I am seen as being too conventional by one set of gatekeepers and too different by another; yet by any thoughtful inspection I am clearly my own thing. Given this reliable misjudgment, and given I can make no headway against it, I am undertaking to publish my “too too” book electronically on this website. This does not mean I am not interested in finding a print publisher for my project. Any inquiries or advice on potential publishers or agents will be enthusiastically received at mlteague@blenderkitty.com.

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(This book is not recommended for readers under the age of eighteen.)

Icarus Transfigured

Table of Contents:

PART I: Spyglass Darkly House

Prologue (A Sleep) 1 (A Forgetting) 1 (A Coming from Afar) 1

Chapter One (Heaven and Hell): 1, 2

Chapter Two (The Labyrinth): 1, 2, 3

Chapter Three (Stonesthrow): 1, 2

Chapter Four (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 1): 1, 2

Chapter Five (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 2): 1, 2

Chapter Six (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 3): 1, 2, 3

Chapter Seven (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 4): 1, 2

PART II: The Idée Fixe

Chapter Eight (Chaos): 1, 2

Chapter Nine (The Dancing Star, Part 1): 1, 2, 3

Chapter Ten (The Dancing Star, Part 2): 1, 2

Chapter Eleven (A Visitation): 1, 2

Chapter Twelve (The Persistence of Memory): 1, 2

Chapter Thirteen (The Ghost in the Machine, Part 1): 1, 2

Chapter Fourteen (The Ghost in the Machine, Part 2): 1, 2, 3

PART III: The Blind Man

Chapter Fifteen (The Blind Man, Part 1): 1, 2

Chapter Sixteen (The Blind Man, Part 2): 1, 2

Chapter Seventeen (Invasion of the Body Snatcher) 1, 2, 3, 4

Chapter Eighteen (In-Betweenness) 1, 2, 3

Chapter Nineteen (The Unsayable, Part 1) 1, 2, 3

Chapter Twenty (The Unsayable, Part 2) 1, 2

PART IV: The Doppelgänger

Chapter Twenty-one (The Haunted Ruin) 1, 2

Chapter Twenty-two (The Doppelgänger)1, 2

Chapter Twenty-three (The Bug Collector)1, 2, 3, 4

Chapter Twenty-four (The Child, Part 1)1, 2

Chapter Twenty-five (The Child, Part 2)1, 2, 3

PART V: Intangible Gift

Chapter Twenty-six (Infinity) 1, 2, 3

Chapter Twenty-seven (The Sublime) 1, 2, 3

Chapter Twenty-eight (The Black Box) 1

Chapter Twenty-nine (The Object Lesson) 1, 2, 3, 4

Chapter Thirty (Deus Ex Machina) 1

Chapter Thirty-one (The Day of Eternal Noon) 1, 2

Epilogue (The Unknowable Thing-in-Itself) 1   (The Balance of Memory) 1

Calendar:
· Start date for notes on story: mid-September 2003

· Start date for manuscript: late October 2003

· Unofficial finish date for manuscript and art: late December 2007

· Rewrites: November 2008, May 2009, March 2010

· January 2011: Title Change (from An Aversion to Ladders)

Stonesthrow, A Musical Protrait: I think the book jacket would read: "...a postcard perfect little town with a dark secret." Actually, Stonesthrow is more a fractured state of mind than a place. The music is happy and bright, but like the idyllic town in my book, it takes a dark turn at the end. (3 minutes 48 seconds in length) 5/15/09

Emma, A Musical Protrait: Music inspired by my book. A soaring tribute to our fashion plate heroine, tinged with a trace of melancholy. Dedicated to cheesecake painter extraordinaire, Gil Elvgren. (3 minutes 50 seconds in length) (More of my music can be found at Blender Kitty.) 6/08/09

Nadir Mound: This is the first musical work I wrote in connection with my book in 2008. It is comprised of two themes (one played backwards). The music is meant to evoke Michael and Emma's day together at Nadir Mound in Chapter Sixteen. (3 minutes 26 seconds in length) 3/12/09

Paper Airplane: In Memory of Dennis Lee Teague, 1938-2010: Set to the Bio Dream film from Chapter Two of my Memoir/Novel, this is a backwards recording of a piece originally from my Paper Airplane Suite (1986-87). I have expanded the piece by adding a small ensemble of instruments, and consequently have dedicated the work to my father, who passed away February 5th, 2010. I barely knew my father, even though I lived under the same roof with him for twenty-eight years. This is because (unbeknownst to us at the time) we were both afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome, a hereditary form of autism. From my father I inherited all of my gifts, and many of my worst flaws. I say of him in my book, we were so much alike we had nothing in common. In the attached picture, he is sitting in front of one of my paintings in my sister's house, circa 1990. This is not so much a farewell to a parent as a reflection on a stranger who was more like me than I ever could have guessed. (3 minutes 10 seconds in length) 2/24/10

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Synopsis:
It is the irony of history that a daring and difficult idea becomes popular in the general culture only after it becomes irrelevant. Einstein’s insight into relativity was a feat of genius, but few in his day (and ours) grasped the finality of what he purposed. As theoretical science shows signs of age and dementia, we stumble toward a greatly diminished horizon of certainty. The discoveries that awaits us will be subtler than those of Einstein, but far more profound.

This book, commenced in 2009, is a natural outgrowth of the philosophical ideas presented in Icarus Transfigured. These notes and their organization are still evolving, and so there are sure to be a few typos and rough patches.

"Beyond this appeal to function in the brain, there is the pricklier issue of manifest religious experience in the material of the brain. The ecstatic aspect of religious experience has been linked to the same location in the brain as sexual orgasm, and it is argued that spiritual elation is merely an offshoot or byproduct of this more legitimate evolutionary end. This offshoot subsequently evolved its own end, despite this end demonstrating no legitimate evolutionary purpose in itself (with perhaps the possible exception of salubrious benefit derived from self-affirmation through self-delusion). To the bigger point, we once more see locating activity in the brain as somehow explaining why something happens by where it happens, and by the same logic that sees bingo and worship as being identical in nature because they both occur in a church. " –from Divine Clues

Further Reading:
The Bear Star: In the Prologue of Icarus Transfigured, the narrator refers obliquely to “a bear sniffing around the stakes.” This is an allusion to the original beginning of my novel, which was set at an observatory where a mysterious bear was nosing around the dumpster and setting off motion detectors. The scene was intended as a metaphor for the end of the world: first seen and forgotten in the telescope, and then darkly remembered as something lurking outside the door. All the elements from this original prologue (save the bear) were incorporated into my book in other ways, although I later reset the bear and observatory in a short story, which you can read here. Last Updated: 2/14/08

Van Gogh's Ear: I wrote this short story in 2007. It is only tangentially about Van Gogh being cloned from his cut-off ear. The central story revolves around an art teacher who rediscovers his love for art after a chance encounter with the mother of one of his second grade students. The coffeehouse conversation between mother and teacher touches on themes presented by Omar in the last scene of Chapter Twenty-three. Last Updated: 2/04/09

Intended Readers:
As a web project in 2008, my year of extensive edits has bolstered me in the idea Icarus Transfigured continues to be a living document; and for anyone rereading it in recent months they will find some of the text markedly different from the original version. I see these real-time “improvements” as one of the luxuries web publishing affords the writer over the printed page. For those who stumble over my book and find value in it, I would love to hear from you, because when you have autism the only leverage you have in this non-autistic world is through winning advocates to your cause. Comments are welcomed and can be sent to me at: mlteague@blenderkitty.com

–the author, Michael Lowell Teague

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