Lift off

It's about time that I tell you some more news about my book. I already informed you that it'll be out for sale by early May, which is actually within a week or so. My editor's publicity machine has been doing overtime lately and you can already find my book on all of the major book websites in Flanders and the Netherlands. But that is not all. Apparently there's a big interest from journalists and therefore my editor asked me to return to Flanders for a couple of days to do some interviews. 5 journalists have already confirmed so the 17-19th of May will be quite hectic for me. I don't know yet from which newspapers or magazines they are, but it's not unlikely that they are major ones. I'm beginning to fear that things are slowly beginning to run out of hand. The fact that the director general of my publishing company told me that she wants to take me out for dinner doesn't really help to take this feeling away either! There used to be a time when I was always trying to be at the centre of attention, merely because being autistic I didn't get any attention from the other children and also because I didn't know how I could claim my "normal share" of the common attention. Most of the time, however, this brought me into a lot of trouble because my ways of seeking attention were far from the generally accepted ones. It was (and still is) so very hard for me to figure out what is "generally accepted" anyway. So after more than 40 years and a serious breakdown I'm now more inclined to stay out of the floodlights. Oh holy coincidence... it's now that the attention is suddenly coming my way without me asking for it! How strange life can be, can't it? 

And now I still have to tell you the best bit. My editor just sent me a review of my book by nobody else but Dirk Verhofstadt - yes, the former Belgian prime minister's brother. I'm not going to translate all of the review because it's simply too long. Let me just say that it was stunnigly positive! A few excerpts:

"... the author draws a profound image (of autism)..."

"... to create a coherent picture of what autism is, something in which the author masterfully succeeds."

and especially this one:

"Some of the pieces have been written exceptionally well and even remind me of "Kleine Dagen", the book which won Bernard Dewulf the Libris Prize 2010" (one of the most important literary prizes in the Flemish/Dutch language)  

Mr. Verhofstadt is even organising a public presentation of my book, under the auspices of the Flemish Liberal Party. Taken aside the without any doubt political aspect of this presentation, it will most certainly be a wonderful promotion for the book itself. I will have to answer questions and then Marleen Verpoorten, the former Flemish minister of education will speak about her ideas to improve the integration of autistic children at school. Afterwards there will be a reception and book sale (with autographs?...). 

Well I'll be... Phew...