The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband, by David Finch, is a "my life with autism" story. To be more precise, it's a "how my wife and I saved our marriage, and it all started with an autism diagnosis" story.
Typically memoirs written by adult autistics are more "full life" stories, including a significant amount about childhood. This one is quite tightly focused, which makes it unusual among its peers. The focus on this book is the author's relationship with his wife: how it began, progressed, went terribly wrong, and slowly, painfully, began to successfully mend. The book puts you inside the author's mind through the years of his experiences... sometimes beautiful and sweet, sometimes petty, cruel, and ugly.
The tone is pretty classically adult autistic. At this point I think you could hand me any given book of this memoir style, and after 25 pages (or less) I could probably tell you if the author was autistic. We have a certain type of conversational, explanatory straightforwardness that serves very neatly to identify us, in my opinion. I couldn't tell you precisely why that would be a thing. Typically I'd assume it was cultural, and there is indeed an autism community to develop that culture now... but I developed the same style of writing without being aware of that culture.
The Journal of Best Practices, as Mr. Finch actually used it while trying to change himself and help rebuild his relationship with his wife, was actually not a book. It was a nightstand drawer, a notebook, and a motley collection of post-its, odd ends of paper, and flipped over envelopes. It was the work of years of pain, care, and vulnerability.
In essence, this is the story of an adult autistic man using his strengths (intelligence, analytical abilities, attention to detail, perseverance), with his wife's incredibly patient help, to overcome his weaknesses (poor communications skills, low innate empathy, difficulty handling change).
The difficulties Mr. Finch suffered weren't particularly novel when it comes to autistic people. Many of his struggles I could personally identify with, and all were at least intellectually familiar. Missing body language, not knowing how to talk to people, not being able to put your feelings into words, not recognizing when your spouse is upset, or when to stop talking... all these things are somewhat common to one extent or another for autistic people. Perhaps simply to people, I don't know. I've never been neurotypical, after all.
I did thankfully miss out on some of mess Mr. Finch was required to address in mending his marriage. Being born physically female and being from a family that, while not exceptionally expressive, at least didn't openly shun emotions... I was never fed the toxic bullshit that teaches people they must simply wall away their upset and never speak of it. Finch was, and overcoming that vile dogma is a struggle. Even if the person knows and believes it's a bad behavior to have, it's still difficult to unlearn.
Another point I differ with the author on is the empathy one. Mr. Finch opines, based on behavior and test results, that he has very little empathy. That skill (yes, skill, you can learn it) is both poorly defined and varies widely even in the general population.
You can have a great deal of natural empathy, but fail to recognize a situation that merits it. Or even having recognized it, truly have no idea how to comfort a person or respond appropriately. Such people often come across as lacking empathy, even though they don't. Or you can have a great deal of empathy and be nearly crippled by being unable to turn it off. The author seems to struggle with the "recognition of circumstances" issue.
There's a couple more things to say about this book.
First, the author goes very far out of his way to only paint himself as the bad guy in the failing relationship. Very little time is spared to his wife's personal struggles and bad moments, save as understandable background. For example, she had a bout with post-partum depression. This, he talks about, but only in the kindest, most "this was not her fault" way. Which, for that sort of thing, is quite accurate. (Post partum depression is nobody's fault.)
However... I am in a marriage that's been on the metaphorical rocks like this at one time. The problem is never, ever, just one person in the relationship. And while the wife points that fact out, repeatedly, the fact remains that the description of difficulties and changes were all on the autistic author's side of things. Nothing (or very little) is said of changes the neurotypical wife needed to make.
And while plenty of his pettiness, cruelties, anger issues, and other sub-optimal behaviors are described in this book... nothing at all is mentioned of hers, save in a quote or two that... strike me as kind of unkind even though the flow of the narrative doesn't seem to even notice.
So, I can see why the author would do make the choice to do this. By only portraying himself as the failure point in the relationship, he avoids any additional damage to his relationship by avoiding literally all arguments about who said what, and what was meant, and whether it should be included or not.
Point two, though... is that's not realistic. Nor is it kind to other autistic people in difficult relationships. In a difficult time in a relationship, both (or all) members have to be resolved to mending the relationship, and the time and effort that will take. They have to be willing to take a hard look at themselves- not the other person, themselves- and say "this needs to change, it needs to change now, and I need to change it."
So yes, the autistic person needs to figure out a journal of best practices or what have you... but the focus shouldn't just be on that person to change themself and thereby fix the whole relationship. That's not healthy, not fair, and not kind. In that regard, I feel this book does a disservice to autistic people.
In the author's defense, this is a stunningly difficult subject to write about. Even with the self-demonizing stylistic choice, such things aren't common. I presume that's because most people don't care to talk about their personal failings at length. Especially if a failed marriage or nearly failed marriage is in the picture. Exhibit A is typing this book review for you right now. (My spouse and I are doing okay now, fyi.)
The last thing to note about this book is that at no point does the author really gush about his wife or say things like "I love her very much." Like many autistic people, Finch is extremely practical in his descriptions and appreciation. He'll tell you exactly why, in detail, his wife is a wonderful human, but won't go into much by way of mushy emotional stuff.
Which made me wonder if perhaps he's the sort of person that, like many autistic people, forgets to say "I love you" as well as demonstrate that love. That's a difficult pill for some parents and spouses to swallow, that their loved one simply doesn't feel the need to repeat the sentiment, or even speak it once. It's the sort of thing that can be taught, but knowing to do so is sometimes beyond us.
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