Nine Minds – Inner Lives on The Spectrum
Daniel Tammet, Wellcome collection, £20

IS a mainstream mindset ever caught up in patterns of thought that are obsessive? Lines can be crossed: wires too. Eccentric or blinkered ways that are relatable in adulthood may signify as ominous mania in early life.

Nine Minds – Inner Lives on The Spectrum gets under the skin, by illustrating how intense interests or mental blanks that occur recognisably amid a happy majority can curiously ramp up or miss-time to designate an autistic community, among whom general rubric is written in upper-case bold. 

Nine Minds keys into difference, from the perspective of interviewees who find themselves on the autistic spectrum. Its writing is not, essentially, a worded version of the workings of the autistic brain. Instead, author Daniel Tammet finds workable language to conjure portraits of his protagonists at their various stages of life. 

In its early chapters, the vaunted inner lives are indeed delineated, in paragraphs where Tammet transcribes personal accounts. However, he also finesses scene-setting, and he is keen to position career arcs in their societal context. He lights upon how we can discern somebody’s predicament by their interactions with crucial allies – be these virtual (the godsend of intuitive digital technology) or human. 

So far, so upbeat. Thence to Billy, fey at the outset, then alarmingly “locked-in” as his young life progressed through extended episodes of constitutional and familial torment. This account is related not by Billy himself (it can’t be) but via a uniqely tenacious proxy, culminating in a soul-stirring manifestation of granular progress. Here is a humbling but viable negotiation with a real being.

Contrastingly, master mathematician/politician Cedric Villani and the comedian/actor Dan Ackroyd (minds 7 and 9 respectively) are celebrities. Their profiles invite and receive exuberant celebration, with a dash of mainstream mania. This is where autism can veer into a rococo realm of excess ability — not that the eventual fame of these figures absolves them of special requirements and assistance.

One’s own wish to become an ally may motivate a reading of this book. In this regard, the direct advocacy of a how-to manual is not on the cards. Tammet seeks instead to empower through fascination, and his fiction-writing skills are deployed to generate prose that is playful and rhythmically impactful. It is efficient in inducing our mental displacement and subsequent insight. Yes, we know a moment of diagnosis will take place in each chapter, but such events are placed with nuance, and with respect for diverse outcomes.

Without recourse to explanation of medical pathologies, it’s made apparent, case-by-case, how autism’s definition (via various methods) may be crucial for the salvation of an intractible child or perhaps redemptive in the later life of a subject deemed long-term oddball.

Intriguingly, in composing the portrait of off-the-wall comedian Dan Ackroyd Mr Tammet’s prose accelerates. His enthusiasm oscillates, in an adulatory gear that might speak of his own place on the spectrum – consciously I think, given the enterprise’s generous agenda, and a writer with the gumption and wit to extend transformative experience so even-handedly.