The Game of My Life: A True Story of Challenge, Triumph, and Growing Up Autistic, by Jason "J-Mac" McElwain with David Paisner, is the story of one autistic guy's 15 minutes of fame. It's less than 250 pages, mainly narrated by the autistic guy, with bookends from the other author.
I found this book deeply disappointing, in retrospect. Save for the blunt honesty of the star and some of the contributing family/friends, this is pretty much a textbook case of inspiration porn. The vast majority of the book's focus is not Jason McElwain's life, his childhood, or his future. It's basketball, and more specifically, one particularly meaningful game near the end of Jason's high school career.
Jason's favorite hobby and intense interest in the story is basketball. Terminology from that game is everywhere, including how the sections of the book are named. It isn't too overwhelming, though I did have to look up how many players are in a basketball team (typically five) to understand why his fan club was called "The 6th Man" group.
Bits and pieces are given of Jason's life prior to the basketball team, but only enough to give you the faintest amount of background... which is pretty in line with most news articles of the same type.
A neat feature of this book, which I can now only consider a very extended inspiration porn news article, is that it folds in little pieces from Jason's family, friends, coaches, etc. It's done in the conversational tone so common to other autistic writing, too, such that Jason will sometimes respond directly to what was said in those miniature pieces, or even vice versa.
What I found most telling about this book, and where it became crushingly clear to me what I was reading, was at the end of the book, more than 200 pages in. The writer here, probably David Paisner, calls it "bittersweet." I'm not honestly sure where the sweet is.
The short version is that Jason's friends have graduated and, as is typical for that age, scattered to the four winds. He rarely sees even the ones that remained in the area. He did not graduate high school with a diploma, and at the time of the book, works as a baker at a supermarket. A job which he seemingly enjoys, but not one where he does anything with the love of basketball and the team that this book is centered around.
His parents' wish is for him to be able to live independently someday. It's even said, and I quote, "Forget the sectionals. Forget the twenty-point game [both things the literal whole point of this book]. That would be the true pinnacle, if Jason could harness his abilities and his growing independence and find a way to make it on his own."
The twenty points Jason scored in under 4 minutes, the feat that made this whole book and dozens of news stories, ESPN clips, etc, possible... and that's how they choose to talk about it at the end of the book. "Forget all that, this is what matters." Talk about buckets of metaphorical cold water.
I think maybe why this gets my goat so much is that in the end, the 15 minutes of fame is over, and everyone except Jason has moved on. Those 4 minutes and the surrounding time might be the best his life will ever be. The community rallied around him, everyone celebrated him, and then it was over.
As a somewhat disabled autistic person, many jobs are closed to him. Expectations are low. Opportunities are minimal. If this is all there is, and by the tone of the book, it pretty much is... that's it.
Maybe Jason feels otherwise, and I hope he does... but that's really depressing to me. He'll likely live another few decades, and only have being a stocker or a clerk to look forward to. I don't see why he couldn't learn to be a coach, or aim to be a team manager for a sports team like he was in high school. Or, I should say, "I don't see why unless he doesn't want to."
In the end, this feels like a story of met potential, and then ignored potential. I'm aware that the 15 minutes of fame is called that because it goes away after 15 metaphorical minutes, but the expectations the other author and his parents seem to have for him are depressingly low.
I don't know the guy, but I really hope things got better for him after this book was published. That he did make it to living on his own (maybe with help, maybe without), finding a life partner if he wants one, pursuing whatever dreams he has. I hope his parents give him the space to do those things, and don't stand in his way, afraid he'll be disappointed, the way his mother did over and over in the book.
The struggle with autistic kids is figuring out when to let us try and succeed or fail on our own merits. Because we don't develop at the same rate as our neurotypical peers, it can be really challenging to recognize when it's appropriate to do so. Some parents will stand between their kids and almost every risk in the world, lest we fail and become disheartened. Which, counterintuitively, steals our opportunities to learn and grow, and makes future failures extra-disheartening.
Don't do that. Let autistic people try things. Don't treat failure as the end of the world, but instead recognize it as the normal part of life, and the learning experience, that it is.
And definitely don't grab your kid's head between your hands to demand their attention. Good Lord what a hideous, tyrannical action. Jason hated it, and he says so in the book, and I'll back him up. Don't. Do. This.
Wow, so sad. It's really depressing that his parents and the other author value him living independently more than him doing something with his basketball talent. I mean, I am multiply-disabled including autistic, live in long-term care, but I do what I love, ie. blogging.
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