Book of the Day: a fine, autographed Jodi Picoult first edition

Jodi Picoult, House Rules (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, stated 1st ed, 1st printing, 2010). ISBN 978-0-7432-0643-4. 532 pp. Hardcover, unclipped dust jacket. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Very good condition. HBB price $35.

Picoult, a skilled writer who published short stories in Seventeen while still a Princeton undergrad, went on to get a masters in education at Harvard. She has edited school textbooks, taught eighth grade, and written a series of Wonder Woman graphic novels. She’s also published something like 25 books and sold fifteen million copies of them.

Families are Picoult’s turf, and House Rules concerns a single mom of two teens. One is exceptionally bright. The other is too, but Asperger’s Syndrome can mask it pretty well, making him seem like an oddball with a fetish for crime:

I may be autistic, but I can’t tell you what day of the week your mother’s thirty-second birthday fell on. I can’t do logarithms in my head. I can’t look at a patch of sod and tell you there are six thousand, four hundred and forty-six individual blades of grass. On the other hand, I could tell you anything you ever wanted to know about lightning, polymerase chain reactions, famous movie quotes, and lower Cretaceous sauropods. I can memorize a TV Guide schedule without even trying; I taught myself how to read Middle Egyptian and I helped my calculus teacher fix his computer. I could talk forever about friction ridge detail in fingerprint analysis and whether it is an art or a science (for example, DNA of identical twins is identical; we know that based on scientific analysis. But the fingerprints of identical twins differ in their Galton details – which evidence would you rather have if you were a prosecutor? But I digress.)

I suppose these talents would make me a hit at a cocktail party if a) I drank, which I don’t or b) I had any friends to invite me to a party, cocktail or not. My mother has explained it to me this way: imagine what it’s like to have someone with an intense stare come up to you and start talking about medium velocity impact blood spatter patterns caused by objects moving between 1.5 and 7.5 meters/second and how they differ from high velocity impact spatter from gunshots or explosives. Or even worse, imagine being the person talking, and not getting the hint when the victim of your conversation is desperately trying to escape.

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome long before it became the mental-health-disorder-du-jour, overused by parents to describe their bratty kids so that people think they’re supergeniuses instead of simply antisocial. To be honest, most kids in my school know what Asperger’s is now, thanks to some candidate on America’s Top Model. So many people have mentioned her to me that they must think we’re related. As for myself, I try not to say the word out loud. Asperger’s. I mean, doesn’t it sound like a Grade-Z cut of meat? Donkey on the barbecue?

I live with my mother and my brother, Theo. The fact that we emerged from the same gene pool is mind-boggling to me, because we could not be more different from each other if we actively attempted it. We look like polar opposites – his hair is fine and so blond it could pass for silver; mine is dark and gets bushy if I do not have it cut religiously every three weeks (actually, part of the reason I get it cut every three weeks is because three is a good safe number, unlike four for example, and the only way I can handle someone touching my hair is if I know it’s coming in advance.) Theo is always caught up in what other people think of him, while I already know what people think of me – that I’m the weird kid who stands too close and doesn’t shut up. Theo listens to rap almost exclusively, which gives me a headache. He skateboards as if the wheels are attached to the bottoms of his feet, and I do mean that as a compliment, since I can barely walk and chew gum simultaneously. He puts up with a lot, I suppose. I get upset if plans don’t work out or if something in my schedule changes, and sometimes I just can’t control what happens. I go all Hulk – screaming, swearing, hitting things. I haven’t ever hit Theo, but I’ve thrown things at him and have wrecked some of his things, most notably a guitar that my mother then made me pay for in increments for the next three years of my life. Theo also is the one who suffers the brunt of my honesty:

Case in Point #1:

Theo walks into the kitchen wearing jeans so low that his underwear is showing, an oversized sweatshirt, and some weird medal around his neck.

Theo: ‘Sup?

Me: Yo, homey, maybe you didn’t get the memo, but we live in suburbia, not the ‘hood. Is it Tupac Appreciation Day or something?

I tell my mother we have nothing in common, but my mother insists that will change. I think she’s crazy.

I don’t have any friends. The bullying started in kindergarten, when I got my glasses. The teacher made a popular boy wear fake glasses so I’d have someone to connect with, but as it turned out, he didn’t really want to talk about whether archaeopteryx should be categorized as a prehistoric bird or a dinosaur. Needless to say, that friendship lasted less than a day. By now, I have gotten used to kids telling me to leave, to sit somewhere else. I never get called on the weekends. I just don’t get the social hints that other people do. So if I’m talking to someone in class and he says, “Man, is it one o’clock already?” I look at the clock and tell him that yes, it is one o’clock already, when in reality he is trying to find a polite way to get away from me. I don’t understand why people never say what they mean. It’s like immigrants who come to a country and learn the language, but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn’t a native English-speaker “get the picture”, so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?) For me, being in social situations – whether that’s school, or Thanksgiving dinner, or in line at the movies – is like moving to Lithuania when you haven’t studied Lithuanian. If someone asks me what I’m doing for the weekend, I can’t respond as easily as Theo would, for example. I’ll stumble over how much information is too much, and so instead of giving a blow-by-blow description of my future plans, I’ll rely on someone else’s words. Doing my best De Niro Raging Bull impression, I’ll say, “You talkin’ to me?” Mind you, it’s not just my peers that I misunderstand. Once, my Health teacher had to take a phone call in the main office and she told the class, “Don’t move – don’t even breathe.” Normal kids ignored the statement; a few goody-two-shoes worked quietly at their desks. And me? I sat like a statue with my lungs on fire, until I was on the verge of passing out.

So the boy Jacob develops a minor celebrity for turning up at crime scenes and seeing what the cops don’t. All well and good until one crime makes an odd, shifty-talking no-eye-contact teen seem like the criminal.

It’s a good read, written with wit and insight.

_________________

Henry Bemis Books is one man’s attempt to bring more diversity and quality to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg market of devoted readers starved for choices. Our website is at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com.  Henry Bemis Books is also happy to entertain reasonable offers on items in inventory; for pricing on this or others items, kindly private message us. Shipping is always free; local buyers are welcome to drop by and pick up their purchases at our location off Peachtree Road in Northwest Charlotte if they like. #JodiPicoult #HouseRules #Book of the Day #RareBooks #HenryBemisBooks #Charlotte

What’s your favorite social media outlet?

We’re blogging at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com. We tweet as Henry Bemis Books.  Have you liked us on Facebook yet? Henry Bemis Books there too. And Google+, too!