Faced with her two-year-old toddler s precipitous bout with epilepsy and his puzzling behaviors Valerie Paradiz took a bold and unusual path coming to terms with and ultimately embracing the strange beauty of her son Elijah s special neurological disorder which was diagnosed as Asperger s syndrome a form of autism. In Elijah s Cup Paradiz tells the powerful story of her family s struggle with her son s disease one characterized by social awkwardness literal-mindedness and a fixation with particular subjects and interests. Like attention deficit disorder (ADD) dyslexia depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder Asperger s has exploded in diagnosis in the last decade reconfiguring the known incidence of autism in the population with estimates as high as one in fifty people. Ever since autism was discovered by researchers in the 1940s the disability has been under the strict purview of professionals in medicine psychiatry and education. Like the deaf community autistics themselves have had little voice in expressing their real experience and needs. They were framed as too sick to be conscious of their own internal lives too mentally ill to possess an identity. All this has changed. Today there is a blossoming movement of autistic self-advocacy groups and alliances that pose challenging questions to the medical status quo. A fascinating independent expression of another way of life full of quirkiness hardship and humor has emerged. Elijah s Cup is a provocative and pioneering book that pushes the envelope of what we know about autism. Were Andy Warhol Albert Einstein and the comedian Andy Kaufman whom we usually think of as brilliant eccentrics autistic? Can these figures serve as role models to this community? Elijah s Cup offers a refreshing take on mental disability from the perspective of civil rights history and the arts. From encounters with the founders of the first civil rights organizations for autistics who guide Paradiz and her son toward a sense of community and self-respect and with visual artists who share with Elijah their special ability to think in pictures Elijah reaches extraordinary heights in his sociability and emotional well-being. In this utterly absorbing and inspiring narrative Paradiz also reveals her own shadow syndrome which afflicts many family members of autistics. She is a cousin a genetic link to her son s autism. Standing as she does on this cultural borderline Paradiz is a sensitive translator between two worlds revealing a groundbreaking insider s view of the beauty of minds hidden in the shadows of autism.