The Secret Life of a Black Aspie

A Memoir

Anand Prahlad

• Publisher: University of Alaska Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781602233225
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Anand Prahlad was born on a former plantation in Virginia in 1954. This memoir, vividly internal, powerfully lyric, and brilliantly impressionistic, is his story.For the first four years of his life, Prahlad didn't speak. But his silence didn't stop him from communicating—or communing—with the strange, numinous world he found around him. Ordinary household objects came to life; the spirits of long-dead slave children were his best friends. In his magical interior world, sensory experiences blurred, time disappeared, and memory was fluid. Ever so slowly, he emerged, learning to talk and evolving into an artist and educator. His journey takes readers across the United States during one of its most turbulent moments, and Prahlad experiences it all, from the heights of the Civil Rights Movement to West Coast hippie enclaves to a college town that continues to struggle with racism and its border state legacy.Rooted in black folklore and cultural ambience, and offering new perspectives on autism and more, The Secret Life of a Black Aspie will inspire and delight readers and deepen our understanding of the marginal spaces of human existence.

1. Cover Page
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Dedication
5. Contents
6. Introduction: Remembering
7. Born with the Spirits
8. Growing Up with the Spirits
9. The Pillows Are Crying
10. The Big Yellow Bus
11. Going to the Moon
12. Cool
13. The White Castle
14. The Big Yellow House
15. The Purple Time
16. I Think I Do
17. Gray Concrete
18. All the Green and Blue
19. Professor in the Silver Town
20. Making Lunch
21. About the Author

Introduction: Remembering

Born with the Spirits

Growing Up with the Spirits

The Pillows Are Crying

The Big Yellow Bus

Going to the Moon

Cool

The White Castle

The Big Yellow House

The Purple Time

I Think I Do

Gray Concrete

All the Green and Blue

Professor in the Silver Town

Making Lunch

1. i
2. ii
3. iii
4. iv
5. v
6. vi
7. vii
8. viii
9. ix
10. x
11. 1...