Spelling Love with an X: A Mother, A Son, and the Gene that Binds Them

When her son, J.P., was first diagnosed with fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of mental retardation, Clare Dunsford discovered that she and three of her four siblings carried the fragile X premutation and had therefore passed on the full mutation to J.P. and several of his cousins. An English professor by training, Dunsford draws on poetry to explore her new identity as a "mutant" and reflect on her life with J.P., a colorful young man with great verbal dexterity and a lov...