NONFICTION - Nov. 15, 1992

NOBODY NOWHERE: The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic by Donna Williams (Times Books: $21; 219 pp.). Donna Williams, an autistic Australian now in her late 20s, writes in the afterword to “Nobody Nowhere”: “I do not believe that being sane or intelligent is superior to being insane or retarded.” The statement is redundant: Anyone who’s read the body of Williams’ book will know she has long since demonstrated the superficial nature of such distinctions. Called at various times not just insane and retarded but disturbed, mad, deaf and schizophrenic, Williams in “Nobody Nowhere” proves herself to be rigorously analytical and remarkably free of self-pity, despite a life fraught with fear, pain, and misunderstanding. The dictionary calls autism an “absorption in self-centered mental activity often accompanied by marked withdrawal from reality,” but that definition pales to nothingness before Williams’ detailed, personal description: staring at dust motes until they formed a world of their own, attempting for years to walk through a mirror to rediscover a cherished moment of belonging, creating different selves either to appear “normal” or to keep others at bay. You might expect “Nobody Nowhere” to be a heartbreaking story, but it isn’t, for a major aspect of autism is emotional detachment--a detachment Williams puts to good use in examining her life. Of self-inflicted physical pain: “I . . . began to hurt myself in order to feel something. It seemed that other people’s ‘normality’ was the road to my insanity.” Of dolls, often rejected: “Oh, these terrifying reminders that one is meant to be comforted by people, and if one can’t, one is meant at least to feel comforted by their effigies.” “Nobody Nowhere” is as brave a book as you’ll ever read.