The outsider

BooksInterview

It isn't easy for a character with Asperger's syndrome to deal with the mess of human emotions. But then, it isn't easy for any of us, says the novelist Clare Morrall

I am always drawn to the strange and the odd and the unusual - people on the outside looking in. I will never write a book about somebody having an affair with their next-door neighbour," declares Clare Morrall. As soon as the words are out she looks embarrassed, as if she has been too forthright, too rude about rivals. "I don't want to sound snooty about other people's writing," she adds hastily. "Other people can do the subject extremely well, I just know that I probably wouldn't be able to."

News that Morrall has no plans to write kitchen-sink dramas will relieve her readers. About to publish her third novel, the 55-year- old has a reputation for creating delightfully quirky characters whose social skills, never mind relationships, barely function. Her first published novel, the Booker-shortlisted Astonishing Splashes of Colour, featured the socially malfunctioning Kitty at the centre of an unconventional family. Her second, Natural Flights of the Human Mind, featured the reclusive former pilot Straker and his neighbour Imogen Doody. Neither was immediately sympathetic, but Morrall's confident prose drew the reader in, making these difficult people fascinating rather than repulsive.

The main protagonist in her new novel, The Language of Others, is another enigma. On first impressions, Jessica is a troublesome child, painfully withdrawn and, as Morrall admits, "difficult to deal with". As the story unfolds, her inability to read people, especially Andrew, the tantrum-throwing violinist whom she goes on to marry, is frustrating. Later, her passivity when faced with Andrew's abuse and her 24-year-old son Joel's adolescent reticence is infuriating. But as Morrall reveals Jessica's past and Jessica narrates her present, it becomes apparent that her inability to deal with the mess of human emotion is the result of undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome. By the time she finally comes to understand the language of other people's hearts, Morrall has made us identify with a woman who, like us all, is just muddling through.

Asperger's syndrome has been a popular subject since Mark Haddon's award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- time. Given her horror of cliched themes, why did Morrall want to add to the burgeoning pile of "autism fiction"? "I actually think that it is because I read The Curious Incident," she admits. Though she thought the book well written, she was disturbed that it might further isolate anyone with a diagnosis on the mild end of the autistic spectrum. "I just worried that children who are less extreme might be labelled as being dangerous or very peculiar, when what they really want to do is fit in with everyone." She adds: "The side of Asperger's I wanted to write about was the milder form, where it is arguable how abnormal you are." She reflects for a moment, then scoffs: "What is 'normality'? I would argue that everybody has an element [of autism] in them."

Women with Asperger's have a tough time, Morrall believes, because their condition is often not diagnosed. "There are a lot of misconceptions about Aspeger's - one is that only boys get it," Morrall explains. Even her writing group refused to believe a woman could have the syndrome. "Because girls with Asperger's are no trouble, people don't worry about them," she says. But, as Jessica shows, without the diagnosis, life can seem lonely and inexplicable.

As Morrall talks I am reminded that, although she has two acclaimed novels under her belt, she also still teaches music to five- to 11-year-old boys at a West Midlands prep school. There is something so school-teachery about her. Not bossy or imposing; Morrall is not that kind of teacher. She is the sort to share a joke in the staff room (she laughs a lot, a dirty giggle as if she's just been told a naughty joke); the sort to enthuse pupils otherwise bored rigid, and draw out secrets buried far from the reach of playground tyrants. I had a teacher like that: Miss Forest. I haven't thought of her in years, but she had the same knowing laugh. It is hard to imagine that, without teaching, Morrall's observations of childhood malice would have been so acute.

Asperger's makes Jessica vulnerable to bullies, especially her charming, sadistic cousin Philip, who, when confronted later in life, is incredulous that he could have been so cruel. "People don't remember the nasty side of themselves," Morrall says. Jessica, like a lot of victims, buries her suffering deep within and tries to make sense of why it is aimed at her. Morrall believes that the after- effects of childhood sadism echo throughout life. In Jessica's case it prepared her for an abusive marriage. "The bullying was conditioning her, and the nature of it was such that she was unable to deal with any of it. Another person would have been able to recognise the same characteristics [of charm and cruelty] in Andrew, and reject them."