“Sometimes an ‘ordinary’ story is anything but. So it proves with Looking After, Caroline Elton’s intimate portrait of her autistic brother, Lionel. … Looking After is never dry – Lionel’s glorious, messy, infuriating humanity comes first.” -- The Times
“Elton writes clearly, with yeasty dollops of direct speech to help the prose rise … [She] includes topics absent form most literature aimed at those caring for the neurodiverse, notably concerning Lionel’s sexual needs. Also unusually, she allows herself feelings (siblings of the disabled can’t really have them) … I will not be the only sibling to appreciate Looking After. Our voices are seldom heard.” --The Spectator
“Candid and tender in equal measure, incredibly moving but also lucid and life affirming, this is such an important book about familial love, about where and how it meets the imperfect world outside. By the closing pages, I felt I had grown to love Lionel too and that I would never forget him.” --Polly Morland, author of A Fortunate Woman
Meet Lionel, Caroline’s older brother. Born in the late 1940s, when little was known about autism, Lionel was considered a peculiarity. From the beginning, he was a silent child, oblivious to the people around him and intent only on playing with his toy trucks. By the time he turned four, doctors declared him ineducable and advised that he be institutionalised – a shockingly standard practise at the time.
No one could have predicted that Lionel would go onto music college and find his place in the world. With the help of his mother – who refused to send him away – Lionel lived a life that was certainly unusual but never dull. He had perfect pitch, could multiply three-figure numbers in his head, or work out which day of the week you were born on, the instant you told him your birthday.
But when Lionel’s mother dies, and shortly after he is diagnosed with cancer, his two sisters struggle to fill the void – to become Lionel’s caretaker and support him as they had promised their mother. Looking After is both a portrait of one autistic man's remarkable life, and a heart-rending story of how one family learnt to care for each other, to deal with loss and to be by each other’s side at the very end.
