The Rosie Result

Graeme Simsion

Text Publishing

Otago Daily Times, March 30th 2019

A recent New York Times article bemoans the way that so many writers use autistic characters as tabula rasa on which to project almost anything. This tendency makes novels such as New Zealand-born Graeme Simsion’s Rosie trilogy that give characters on the autism spectrum centre-stage all the more precious.

These books are presented from the perspective of Don Tillman, a scientist whose impressive capacity for rational problem-solving is counterbalanced with a complete inability to understand emotional complexity, and details his multi-year journey of self-improvement. The Rosie Result, which marks the culmination of Don’s project, picks up the story ten years after the end of The Rosie Effect and follows the same pattern as its predecessors: Don identifies a series of problems in his life and sets out to solve them, whilst completely missing out the more significant threat they pose to his relationship with his wife and life-partner Rosie. Those problems that are amenable to logic he deals with himself, with varying levels of success. For the rest, typically involving interpersonal interactions with no obvious, evidence-based solution, he relies on the network of friends who have already helped him find the perfect life partner and prepared him for the challenges of impending fatherhood and, through a combination of teamwork and muddling through, Don emerges marriage intact and with a new level of self-awareness.

The book opens with the Tillmans’ return to Australia, where his wife Rosie has landed her dream job– principal investigator on a project comparing bipolar patients’ and therapists’ perceptions of ‘successful’ treatment –and Don has a teaching/research position. But new situations bring new difficulties that are (in increasing order of severity): 

1. Don’s new job requires major up-skilling in genetics and computing, consuming his time and intellectual resources.

2. An impromptu ‘participatory demonstration’ intended to challenge racial classification based on physical characteristics has seen him suspended for racism.

3. His best friend Dave has spiralled down into unemployment, depression and morbid obesity, threatening both his health and his marriage.

4. Rosie has been demoted from lead to associate researcher because she has to be home after school to look after their eleven-year-old son, Hudson.

5. Hudson is having serious social problems at school, and Don and Rosie are under increasing pressure to get him diagnosed as autistic – a course of action to which they are vehemently opposed

Since his son’s difficulties take priority over everything else, Don quits his job in order to be available at all times, neatly resolving problems one, two and four. Opening a cocktail bar for introverts to make optimal use of his evenings and supplement Rosie’s salary also provides the perfect opportunity to utilise Dave’s professional skills, removing problem three. Problem five proves rather more complex, and when the conflict between helping Hudson and maintaining a positive father-son relationship becomes too hard – and painfully reminiscent of his own childhood –Don outsources the problem to other mentors. But Hudson is his father’s son in more ways than one and has his own solution, albeit a somewhat different one to that of his parents.

Despite the novel’s familiar trajectory, Don is such an endearing character that far from feeling formulaic, re-entering his disconcertingly familiar world is like being immersed in a warm bath. His humour, lack of guile, and child-like delight in life he has so painstakingly created is delightful, and although his social awkwardness gives rise to many genuinely funny moments, the laughs are never cheap or mean. Don is well aware of his own deficits and invites us to laugh with rather than at him, but we are just as often laughing at our own neuro-typical irrationality. He is also forced to face difficult subjects, including domestic abuse, discrimination, and the question of whether autism is an illness to be cured or an identity in its own right, acknowledging their importance and recognising he can provide no easy solution. The Rosie Result is every bit as good as its predecessors. Although I am sad to leave Don and his family to carry on without me, I am certain that they will live