Memoir · Dreams · Essays

A Boy Called Wild

An Autist’s Imaginal Memoir

A braided memoir of essays, dreams, stories, poems and assessments: the inner life of a boy who grew up in a cage of his own labelling, and the long road out.

About the memoir →

Cover of A Boy Called Wild: a lone figure walking a moonlit expanse of cracked ice under a full moon
Format
Hardback
Edition
First edition
Publisher
Keystone Publications
ISBN
978-1-0683788-1-2
Date
Forthcoming
Pre-order enquiries →

Reception and reviews

Early reader responses and endorsements will be gathered here.

A Boy Called Wild

An Autist’s Imaginal Memoir

[ Opening line of the memoir to go here — a scene from the Boy’s life, or the question the whole book turns on. ]

If you have read Keystones, this is its companion, told from the inside of one life. If you find your way here first, the memoir stands on its own.

A braided memoir in essays, dreams, stories, poems and assessments: the inner life of a boy who grew up in a cage of his own labelling, and the long road out.

[ Fuller description to come: the braided threads of the memoir — the Boy, the Fool, the dream catalogue, the assessments — and how they weave together, written to the same maturity as the Keystones description. ]

The memoir turns on a handful of threads:

  • [ Thread one — placeholder ]
  • [ Thread two — placeholder ]
  • [ Thread three — placeholder ]

[ A pull-quote from the memoir will sit here — a short passage in the Boy’s voice that carries the whole book. ]

Read a sample

The opening movement introduces the Boy and the imaginal world the rest of the memoir moves through.

The opening movement

The memoir’s opening: the Boy, the cage of labelling, and the imaginal world the book moves through. A free sample PDF will be available here closer to publication.

The sample is being prepared. It will appear here as an embedded PDF you can read in place or download.

Order the book

Available worldwide once published, in hardback, paperback and Kindle, from Amazon, Bookshop.org, Hive, Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookshop and library. Distributed worldwide via Ingram Sparks.

To be told when it is out, write to [email protected] with the subject “Notify me”.

More readings, recordings and conversations

  • Soon The Boy and the Fool A reading
  • Soon In conversation Interview
  • Soon The making of the memoir A short film

Questions & answers

What is A Boy Called Wild about?

It is an autobiographical memoir of growing up autistic: the inner life of a boy who grew up in a cage of his own labelling, and the long road out.

What does “an autist’s imaginal memoir” mean?

Imaginal, after Henri Corbin, means the imagination taken seriously as an organ of encounter rather than mere fantasy. The memoir treats dreams, images and inner figures as real events in a life, not decoration around it.

What form does the memoir take?

A braided form: essays, dreams, stories, poems and assessments set alongside one another, so the life is shown from several angles at once rather than told as a single straight line.

Write to me

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