No Map to This Country

Autism is a rising epidemic that affects 1 in 68 children. When Jennifer Noonan’s son was diagnosed in 2009, she refused to accept the conventional wisdom that autism was largely permanent, instead launching a relentless investigation into the very latest dietary, immunological, and metabolic research available. “I certainly had no reason to believe at that time that autism was treatable,” she writes, “but somehow I decided, in my classically pigheaded way, that it would be.” This spirited audacity gave her not only courage,and ultimately success,in the face of such a devastating diagnosis, but also a self-aware and darkly funny perspective on her own faults and struggles over the next six years.With equal parts defiance, tenacity, and wry humour, No Map to This Country details one family’s journey through the modern autism epidemic, and the lengths to which a mother will go to heal her family. Neither a medical manual nor a heartwarming tale of growth, Noonan’s ground-breaking yet profoundly relatable memoir seamlessly combines cutting-edge research with a gripping and unapologetic account of her family’s fight for recovery.