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After a late-in-life burst into nonfiction with Diagnosing Jefferson, followed by Asperger’s and Self-Esteem, Norm resurrected a blockbuster newspaper serial of historical fiction to put it into book form, The Jayhawker. Then he collaborated in mystery writing to produce a cozy, Sour Notes, about an opera-savvy, crime-solving piano teacher. That covered 2000-2009.

Now what?

As in "biting off more than you can chew," the goals for Norm's writing appetite may be greater than his capacity for reaching them, but what the hell.

Back burners are currently holding an opera titled The Good Citizen, a Brooklyn-based tragedy of the 1950s; a cheerful musical based on his published serial, Heart Deco, starring a back-to-life Jean Harlow; and a short play, Helen and Cy, based on his mother's suicidal resolution to clashes of class and religion.

A front-burner position for 2010 has gone to The Alcove Bed, historical fiction from Thomas Jefferson's point of view. Norm believes his work on the nonfictional Diagnosing Jefferson gave him special insight for episodic treatment of TJ's love life.

Also in the works is a Sour Notes follow-up book titled Disharmony, featuring relentless and sexy senior Sally Freberg and her oddball companions, who pursue another opera-based solution to murder. This sequel could pattern a series.

 

Asperger's and Self-Esteem:

Insight and Hope Through Famous Role Models

 

Walter Isaacson, in his 2007 biography, Einstein, took issue with Norm’s placing Time magazine’s Person of the Century on the autism/Asperger’s continuum in Asperger’s and Self-Esteem, published in 2002. Isaacson’s explanation, aimed also in opposition to British scientist Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen (and others who agreed with Norm), was that Albert Einstein had “close friends.” In other words, the social deficit that is one of Asperger’s Syndrome’s most recognizable symptoms was not applicable to Einstein.

Norm explains that Isaacson failed to take into account an American Psychiatric Association “text revision” of 2000 to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, originally published in 1994.  In that revision the APA acknowledged that some characteristics of persons with Asperger’s may evolve over time.  But in the matter of developing social liaisons, according to the APA, those friendships are very likely to be “one-sided.”

The one-sidedness of such friendships was first raised by Norm in Diagnosing Jefferson in 2000.  In that book he explained that charismatic people with Asperger’s traits will attract others but will rarely reciprocate features of friendship with balanced consideration.  Norm believes that point in his book was an uncredited basis for the APA’s revision, because several months earlier he had shared his conclusions about Thomas Jefferson with the Association.

Other historical figures cited in Asperger’s and Self-Esteem—all associated with the arts and sciences—are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Bela Bartok, Glenn Gould, Orson Welles, Paul Robeson, Carl Sagan, Oscar Levant, and the folk musician and composer John Hartford. Norm cites major accomplishments by each in spite of difficulties he believes are traceable to the neurological condition we now know as Asperger’s Syndrome. Only one of those individuals had ever been “diagnosed”—pianist Glenn Gould, whose psychiatrist was his biographer as well but whose 1997 diagnosis was also posthumous. In 2008 a French publisher translated and released Asperger’s and Self-Esteem under the title Ces autistes qui changent le monde, or “Autistics who changed the world,” a title Norm wishes he had suggested from the start.