Twin: A Memoir

A heartbreaking yet deeply hopeful memoir about life as a twin in the face of autism

When Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two years old, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would be diagnosed years later as autism. Understanding Mary and making her life a happy one appeared to be impossible for the Shawns. With almost no warning, her parents sent Mary to a residential treatment center when she was eight years old. She never lived at home again.

Fifty years later, as he probed the ...