Curt Warner was raised by his grandparents in West Virginia and took football as an opportunity not to become a coal miner. He went to Penn State and then was drafted, behind John Elway and Eric Dickerson, by the Seahawks. His life in football is covered in a few chapters, as the focus of this book is on his family, particularly on twin boys with autism.
Curt and his wife Ana alternate first-person accounts, with an interlude by their older son giving his perspective, detailing their family life. Despite the twins Austin and Christian's symptoms reading as textbook autism today, in the late 1990s, they boys went undiagnosed until they were five. Even after diagnosis, nothing about the situation got any easier; there was only a sense of relief that they could give the problem a name.
I'm sure it is not the Warner's intention, but this book left me horrified and exhausted. The twins were aggressive and destructive, harmful both to themselves and to others. They required constant supervision for years. They did structural damage to the family's home; then, when it had just been freshly remodeled to be more resilient, they started a fire which burned it down. While the narrative elicits greater sympathy for families dealing with autism, the relentless intensity of that life rendered me numb, not inspired to dive in and get involved but wanting to withdraw and hide from the gritty details revealed.
One thing that impressed me: Ana tells of desperate days as a stay-at-home mother, when she regularly called the prayer line of a local Christian radio station. When they hadn't heard from her in a couple of days, the people at the station actually called her to make sure she was all right. I have to admit, I've rolled my eyes at the "let us pray for your request" options I've heard on Christian radio, but may God bless those people for actually caring.
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