Bliss Road: A memoir about living a lie and coming to terms with the truth

by Martha Engber

★★★★★ “Illuminates the complicated path of a neurodiverse family.” Liane Holliday Willey, author of Pretending to be Normal: Living with Aspergers Syndrome

Martha Engber lives a charmed life in the suburbs with a husband and two kids where everything is fine, fine, fine until suddenly she’s… completely broken. She’s so used to lying to others and herself that she has no idea who she really is or how she feels about anything. What happened? Why is her life smooth driving one minute and totaled the next?

In this sometimes funny, often devastating memoir, Martha describes the arduous journey toward discovering the invisible roadblock that ran her life off course: her psychological distress is the result of being the neurotypical daughter of a dad with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder, a condition that affects over 75 million people worldwide.

Martha uses personal anecdotes and research about the emergence of ASD as a diagnosis to explain the psychological, emotional and social challenges she faced as a child, then as an adult and parent. Along the way, she shows the sometimes harrowing, but eminently rewarding, route others can follow to chase down the source of their family angst and so reach a more blissful future.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Autistic Spectrum Disorder

235 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 6, 2023

About the author

Martha Engber is the author of six books. SCATTERED LIGHT (https://vineleavespress.myshopify.com...), the sequel to WINTER LIGHT, an IPPY Gold Medal Winner for YA, will be published Nov. 25, 2025.

Her other fiction includes THE FALCON, THE WOLF AND THE HUMMINGBIRD, a historical novel, and THE WIND THIEF. Her nonfiction includes BLISS ROAD, a memoir about her neurodiverse family, and GROWING GREAT CHARACTERS, a resource for writers.

A workshop facilitator and speaker, she’s had a full-length play produced in Hollywood and fiction published in a variety of literary journals. She and her screenwriting team have optioned a TV series to a studio. She encourages readers to connect via her website, MarthaEngber.com.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is an interesting book of the author looking to her past and realizing her father probably had autism. She examines how that shaped her life and how it affected her parenting and her relationship with her husband.
She comes to the realization that she needs to change for the better and how tough that is but also rewarding in the end.

[Elaina Battista-Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowledge is comfort. But that comfort must stretch into healing, meeting that knowledge halfway. That’s only one of the many messages I gleaned from this gorgeous book. As ARC readers/writers we often carve out specific time to read others’ projects. I carved out a full week, but only needed three days, it turns out. Bliss Road keeps a jogging pace, contains a heart-wrenching soul, and sports a hopeful and bright core. I loved it.


We are gorgeously invited into the memoirist’s world with imagery of a romantic childhood full of culture. We are then eased into the realities of a father who remained an enigma and a hard heart. The author punches you in the gut with her reality, but then soothes it throughout with silky poems and well-researched information about ASD (autism spectrum disorder). In the earliest sections of the memoir, we travel among decades to understand what was happening in the world of child psychiatry and autism studies, and because it’s not this way throughout the entire novel, I LOVED the format because she doesn’t neglect the emotional bite. Even in the depths of her journalistic approach.


The Great Exploration is one of the poems in Bliss Road, and it happens to be my ultimate favorite. It holds the texture of summer childhood. There are so many favorites for me in this book, including passages that are written so well: a scene where her mom is biting a sandwich and the child wonders how their father can refuse/withold affectionate gestures, but still be loving, all the same. And then only pages later another passage describing the “dial” of ASD and how everyone has a “unique combination” on their dial. And yet, a few more pages in, even more brilliantly, the author considers she and her dad to have personal “decoder rings” that don’t always function in sync. It’s genius.


There’s a startling paragraph about two-thirds through regarding a father who is on the spectrum’s inability to grasp the emotions of his wife, and the way she needed his support more than ever. Yet, he struggled to empathize. This passage describes the daughter’s plea with him to finally understand what had happened so many years ago regarding her illness. It’s excerpts like these that distinguish this memoir from many I’ve read lately. In another chapter soon after this, the author connects on such a universal level, that I had to pause, reread, and really feel in my soul how deeply she connected: I continued to move through my days, mouth shut about my epiphany and amazed by how my exceptionally normal external appearance hid the internal tornado of debris whirling up inside. Everyone can connect to this sentence. Everyone.


Ten pages further in, I have the letters OMG plastered over the entire page, where the author unwraps the notion of our interiors versus exteriors and the choice between explosion and implosion. I guess what I am saying is, I wish for this memoir to be on BOOK CLUB lists all over the map. There’s is so much material to relate to and discuss, for daughters, mothers, and wives alike. Which will then lead to healing, which I know is exactly what the author wants. We all do. That’s what writers want.



Bliss Road is an important read.

[Annalisa Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bliss Road is a brave, absorbing analysis of the author’s life after a diagnosis of ASD within her family. Questions mount as she looks back over seemingly insignificant moments of her childhood, which while confusing and heart breaking at the time, have greater impact with hindsight.

This is a tender and courageous memoir as the author intersperses tales of her childhood with the emerging research into ASD, and realises the answers were there all along. In the concluding chapters, she turns the spotlight onto herself and her relationships with her husband and children.

Martha has such a beautiful way of drawing us into her life, her prose has an almost dreamlike quality. This is a memoir done exactly right, and I highly recommend it.

[Tara DuBose-Schmitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was intrigued at the story of a woman raised by an autistic parents, but the format was frustrating. Engber starts her memoir chronological—following the dates of autism research and education with her own father’s life and experiences. Then she starts pingponging between her own childhood memories, experiences as an adult and sometimes passages of speculation about her own infancy and early lives of relatives. The latter part of the book is a deep dive into the author’s emotional ills and therapy. Interspersed with all are pages of strange poetry. Engber’s pain is palpable but this is not a great read.

[Melanie Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told in an engaging, down-to-earth prose style that reels in the reader, Martha Engber's reflections about her father's undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder contains great compassion as well as resonant insights into how her father's personality and interactions with others were both jarring and loving in turns. The author vividly portrays how her father affected not only himself but his family into the next generations.

I especially savor the chapters where the author has epiphanies both about her father's hurtful behavior as well as how that impacted her and her parenting, leading to personal growth and a strengthening of bonds over time within the family.

I greatly admire the candor and courage of this memoir and recommend it to readers interested in Autism Spectrum memoirs, father-daughter books, memoirs about family and intergenerational connections and health, and anyone who appreciates a well-researched and candidly told real-life story of resilience and lessons learned. A memoir to keep on your shelf for rereading and also self-growth.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Bliss Road by Martha Engber
Bliss Road: A memoir about living a lie and coming to terms with the truth

One day Martha's sister calls to inform her that her nephew has Asperger's syndrome. Could this be hereditary? Does that help to understand their dad's occasionally unpredictable behaviour? Is Asperger's hereditary, she wonders? They were unaware when they first learned about Brian in the 1990s. This book undoubtedly got me to thinking. Having a child with autism among other problems, as well as witnessing some people's reactions to him, made me know that even though we have come a great way, there is still a long way to go. This book pounded that home for me even more, but in such a fantastic way.I appreciate how the personal tale is interlaced with facts and scientific studies despite the book's occasionally brutal honesty and frankness. Although it is based on one person's personal experience, it is an interesting and thought-provoking book that I believe will be extremely helpful to many others who are negotiating their own identities and backgrounds. A fascinating, impactful read

[Steve Zettler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In reading Bliss Road I began to feel as if I were a trout swimming upstream after a meaty fly, all the while knowing full well there was a dangerous hook attached to the lure. And, man, was I hooked. This is a wonderfully absorbing memoir, interlaced with gloriously rich, passionate poetry. I was truly impressed with Engber’s ability to walk us through the murky, highly personal, waters of her life; a life bombarded inside and out by various degrees of autism. From the onset, where she seems curious, more than anything, about her father’s unaccounted for behavior, she carries the reader through her search for specific answers, to her discovery and understanding of the tragic hereditary possibilities of ASD (autism spectrum disorder), and her deep dive into her own awakening and learning that things didn’t stop with her father. In one particularly chilling account she tells her son, “You can, you know, share things with me.” To which her son calmly responds, “I don’t think so. You’re not my emotional confidante.” Engber is, “Stunned to silence, stung to my core, I instantly knew what he said was true.” Bliss Road is thoughtful and illuminating; a heartfelt and brilliantly crafted memoir.

[Kelly Pramberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars! I really liked Engber's memoir and enjoyed her writing style. I thought the way she explored mental health, healing and ASD was spot on. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Kwan Lai · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Bliss Road, Martha Engberslowly discovers why she cannot be truthful to herself and is unwilling to expose her inner emotional vulnerabilities even to the people closest to her, the people she loves. The diagnosis of ASD did not emerge till later in her adult life when she realizes that she has been raised in a neurodiverse family. She weaves through the scientific evidence of ASD over the years in a way not too technical or overwhelming for the readers to wade through.

The epiphanies of finding explanations for the psychological, social, and emotional challenges she faces growing up give her an impetus to understand why she behaves the way she has and how she can then move forward to rectifying her situations and creating the pathway to be kinder to herself and the people around her. The heartbreaking moments in the book are when she realizes that despite her closeness to her mother she still does not truly know and understand her and shuts her out of her innermost feelings because she cannot trust her, and when her son tells her that “You’re not my emotional confidante,” on the day she tells him he can share things with her. He has asked for help in his younger days and she does not extend herself to do so.

In the end, we are left with the thoughts that there is still a lot of work and progress to be made and challenges to be confronted, but Engber has begun the long road of healing.

[Sylvia Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

really informative if slightly broken up memoir about coping with autism in the family. I would have preferred it if the research developments had been put together and the narrative kept as one flow because it really broke up the story of the family and how they coped or not. But I found it a powerful story to read anyway and really insightful in places. I live with a narcissistic parent and found many of her experiences echoed with me strongly. I picked it up as an alternative read and found I wanted to finish it immediately, I really wanted to know how it worked out for them all.

Second read to remind myself of the story details and enjoyed it just as much second time around

[Daisy Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bliss Road was a remarkable memoir that was incredibly moving, educating and wise.

Reflecting on a childhood that was far from awful, but one that left her emotionally disconnected from her parents, and more crucially, from herself, Martha takes us with her on her route to bliss via many wrong turns.

Losing her Mum to cancer and then her father too, she begins to suspect that her father had Asbergers. Which would explain his strangely unemotional and unaffectionate manner, his need for structure and control. His seemingly random outbursts of temper that made her confused and anxious. And also her mother's attempts to conciliate and keep the peace.

As she goes on to marry and have children, Martha is horrified to realise she is modelling the same behaviours herself.

But Martha sets out to make things better. A journey to the core of her being that will awaken and illuminate that feeling of being nothing all her life. Learning to allow herself to feel sad for herself, to learn new ways of communicating and the most vital lesson of all - showing kindness and compassion to herself.

This memoir was a love letter to herself, and to her parents and children.

[Deanna Rozak]

Bliss Road provides a unique viewpoint of a daughter’s experience growing up with a neurodiverse parent. Martha does a beautiful job detailing important background information about autism, together with her own feelings and perceptions, as she struggled to come to terms with and understand her father and ultimately herself. Martha’s journey is one that I am sure many parents of people with autism, as well as children of autistic parents can appreciate and relate to. I think an important message of the book is one of love and understanding for those living with neurodiversity, as well as those affected by the neurodiversity of a loved one. Like all good memoirs, Martha allows the reader a glimpse into her life through her experiences, but then treats the reader to poems which illustrate her deepest feelings about her childhood, her family, parenting and ultimately her coming to a place of peace. I highly recommend Bliss Road as a beautifully written book about a subject which deserves attention and discussion.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different type of voice but a well done one nonetheless. It took me a few pages to really get into the storyline but it was a good one when I did.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Bliss Road: A Memoir about Living a Lie and Coming to Terms with the Truth” appealed to me because it’s about the author’s dad’s high-functioning autism aka Asperger’s Syndrome. This is a condition I’m well acquainted with, and I’m drawn to books on the topic in hopes of finding further insights about it.

Author Martha Engber is my age (we apparently were even born on exactly the same day), and had suspicions, growing up, that her dad was “different.” Her mom realized this as well, thinking “What is wrong with him? He never listens. It’s not worth getting a divorce over.” He had odd eating habits including many sauces he’d make himself based on health-related theories he came up with, often based on increasing his lifespan. He didn’t have friends since they would disrupt his schedule. He had a strong sense of duty. It was difficult to have a conversation with him, since instead of give-and-take, he’d speak more in a series of monologues. When Engber would talk on the phone to him as an adult, after asking just a few basic questions of her, her dad would lead the conversation onto something, for instance, he’d recently found interesting in the Wall Street Journal rather than something personal. When Engber’s mom developed cancer, her dad “acted against her best interest time and again and seemed unaware of how his behavior negatively impacted her, especially during her last and worst year.” Told that home healthcare aides would be helpful, he turned them down due to not wanting “strangers” in his house.

At some point as an adult, Engber’s realization that her dad wasn’t normal increases, and she searches for answers. She realizes that her dad most likely had Asperger’s Syndrome, or high-functioning autism (this diagnosis didn’t even exist for most of his life). Most aspects of Asperger’s described her dad’s behaviors, from a “flattened affect” (meaning that the person shows little emotion) to a preference for one’s own company to a hyperfocus on a narrow range of interests. Other common traits of the condition are unusual eating habits, various sensory sensitivities, and social awkwardness.

All this was fairly interesting to me. But the second half of the book seemed, in my opinion, to go off the rails a bit. Engber theorizes that her mom also had Asperger’s, although I didn’t feel she presented much evidence for this. I think it’s more likely her mom was “aspergated,” a term coined to describe the way those living with someone with Asperger’s often begin displaying some symptoms of it themselves (usually as a coping mechanism). In fact, when a therapist suggests Engber may have Asperger’s herself, she becomes very upset (I’d suggest she probably was a bit aspergated herself).

The second part of the book also dealt heavily with Engber’s journey into healing through therapy and self-awareness. This all was of little interest to me, as was the lengthy free-form poetry that she inserts throughout. I’d hoped for more of her childhood with her dad and her insights from that.

[Jennifer Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who has or lives with or knows someone on the spectrum, this is a great read. It is only after growing up and leaving home and getting married and becoming a mother and losing a parent and hearing about her nephew's diagnosis that Martha Engber realizes her father's behaviors--sudden outbursts of anger and hurtful comments even physical lashings--could possibly have been better understood and maybe avoided had he and the family understood their origin and been able to help support him.

What I admire most about this memoir is how the narrator dials back time to show the origins of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Asperger's, to show the research and thinking, the doctors and behaviors behind the label, interspersing the history and facts as her own story and the story of her father unfold. She also sprinkles in poems between chapters that give the reader a beautiful break from the weight of the story.

[Dollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thoughtful memoir. Engber shares her insights about her own experience being raised by a neurodiverse parent in a time before autism was commonly diagnosed. She discusses how her father's comments and behaviors impacted her own self esteem and her abilities to form relationships and parent her children. She reflects on her continued healing and raises awareness of how individuals raised by ASD (or suspected ASD) parents may require help building self esteem and navigating relationships. But her message further extends to considering how all parents carry legacies of their own traumas and experiences and how awareness and healing can create better parenting and experiences for future generations. I enjoyed her insights, depth and poetry

[Christal Niederererere · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thought-provoking book! It was interesting to widen my eyes to how neurodivergence presents itself, but also to use Engber's story as a way to analyze my own upbringing, family bonds, and communication style.

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

(So many reviews by fellow authors! That's not a good thing, in my opinion, because it leaves the impression the book's ratings are not as diverse as they should be. There are over 30 reviews/ratings so far and all are 4-5 stars. My review will be the first critical one at three stars.)

There are countless books written for adult children of alcoholics, drug addicts, sexual abusers, narcissists, etc. This was the first one I have ever seen written for children of parents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. How interesting . . . except it unfortunately wasn't as interesting as I expected. After finishing the book, I was left only feeling that individuals in our society are too overdiagnosed, too labeled and too dependent on therapy.

Her father acted strangely at times and made cruel comments at times? He sounded narcissistic. By labeling him autistic, however, he is given an excuse for his inappropriate behavior, and his children are seen as needing therapy of one kind or another to understand their father. Maybe they need to be tested for autism, too. Maybe they will be put somewhere on the spectrum and stay there for life, like their father.

Along with seeing therapists, Martha Engber does a lot of self-therapy throughout her life, which is not a bad thing. This memoir is one that appears to be therapeutic and even includes poetry. Writing poetry can be an excellent type of therapy because it's free association writing, which enables subconscious thoughts to surface in the poems. I didn't particularly like her poems, but poetry is incredibly subjective, and I'm sure some readers will identify with them.

There is one place in the book where Ms. Engber tells of a conversation she was having with her son one day, who was in college at the time. With some newfound knowledge of parenting, she tells her son he can confide in her about anything. He looks up from his cell phone and tells her: "I don't think so. You're not my emotional confident." His remark totally devastates her and she traces it back to her own upbringing. Personally, I would have replied: "I'm your mother. I'm not supposed to be your emotional confident at your age."

Should she really have expected her son to want to confide in her about anything or everything, much less be crushed when he made it clear he had no intention of doing so? The late teen years and early twenties is a prime time for children to become more emotionally unattached to their parents, not more emotionally attached. Parents having regrets about how they raised a child can't turn back the clock, and should not expect an older child to start behaving like a much younger child, even though it might make them have less regrets.

See, the problem here is obviously I'm not the type of sensitive reader who would fully appreciate this book. As stated earlier, I also think our society has become too dependent on the field of psychology to understand and help others. Moreover, we depend on labels way too much. I am truly glad Martha Engber was able to find her bliss, but one's bliss is not everyone's bliss. I love to analyze my life and the lives of others, but not to the extent that she analyzes. It's way too much for this reader.

(Note: I received a free e-ARC of this book from Netgalley and the publisher or author.)

[Ann Epstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shedding the Sins of Our Fathers -- My curiosity when I read Martha Engber’s Bliss Road: A Memoir About Living a Lie and Coming to Terms with the Truth was threefold. First, having inferred autobiographical elements in Engber’s fiction, I sought to confirm my hunches in her memoir. Second, as a developmental psychologist who got my Ph.D. when the study of autism was still in its infancy (Bruno Bettelheim was then blaming the condition on “refrigerator moms” and it would be decades before the role of heredity was acknowledged), I wondered how Engber would integrate her personal experience with emerging knowledge in the field. Third, recognizing in hindsight that my own late father would today be identified as “on the spectrum,” I sought to further my understanding of its impact on me. Engber satisfied my curiosity on all three issues. First, her father’s ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) clearly influenced Engber’s writing. Where he was socially clueless, she is an astute observer and recorder of emotions. Her fiction centers on human interactions, often raw and open. She brings that same unrelenting honesty to her memoir. The probing poems that introduce each section ask the questions — What? Why? — she sensed but couldn’t articulate as a child. As a writer myself (see my Goodreads author page https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...), I can spot Engber’s authenticity on every page. Second, Engber seamlessly integrates her own experiences with the history of autism research and the latest knowledge in the field. To her surprise, and chagrin, she discovered there was no research on the effect that ASD parents, especially undiagnosed ones, have on the development of their children. Although it is not inevitable, a troubled parent can shape a troubled child. The longer the potential damage goes undetected, the harder it is to treat. Engber offers practical suggestions to prevent or limit the inter-generational damage, such as offering parenting classes to those diagnosed with ASD where they can the learn skills to connect with their children. Third, seeing my own experiences reflected in Engber’s narrative was validating. I am sure that many readers will have that same jolt of recognition. Engber details her path to recovery and literally delivers a pep talk to readers to embark on their own journey. She admits the road is arduous but promises that it leads to a fuller life. From the book’s blissful conclusion, we have to acknowledge she’s right.

[Kate Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bliss Road is the raw and moving chronicle of a women who sets out to heal herself from the damage done by an undiagnosed neurodiverse parent.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, young Martha’s dad is responsible, logical, and loving. That’s what makes the one percent—the times he flies into violent rages over imperceptible slights—so terrifying. As a young girl, Martha manages her father’s unpredictability by locking away her needs and vulnerabilities while maintaining a cheerful, responsible exterior. “You don a bright coat that gives you dimension, along with a mask that’s friendly and appealing.”

It isn’t until Martha is grown and her mother dies that “the Polaroid brightness of my youth began to fade and distort.” Martha realizes the devastating effect of the atmosphere created by her father’s undiagnosed Asperger’s—a diagnosis she has arrived at on her own, through extensive research and reflection. His emotional disconnection has lain beneath the surface of her family’s life like a subterranean glacier, and now she realizes its effect: she never really knew either of her parents, and they never really knew her.

But Martha does not collapse under the weight of this new knowledge. She’s a fighter, and she sets out to change things.

What makes this book so compelling is the author’s unflinching honesty as she describes the emotional work it takes to heal herself and her relationships. Worse than discovering her impaired relationship with herself is the realization that she has been emotionally unavailable to her children, now grown. Determined to repair the damage, she chips away at the distance between herself, her son and daughter, and her husband, ultimately making each bond closer and stronger. Engber’s writing about this emotional struggle is visceral, but also clearly articulated. Both the pain and the progress are recognizable to all of us who have taken similar journeys. This is a book for all of us.

[Pauline Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, as a book reviewer I find myself at a loss for how to get my impressions and how the book made me feel into words for others to read. It doesn’t happen often, but this is one such book. I feel like I connected so deeply to some of Martha’s experiences that at times it literally took my breath away. I cried, I laughed, and I reminisced about a childhood with a father who was unable to care about me (due to a traumatic brain injury when he was 24).
I loved the way she wrote, sometimes blunt, frank and brutal, but other times soft, lyrical and beautiful. The undulating course of the narrative seemed somehow appropriate for the fluid nature of one’s life.
My eldest, adult, son has ASD and his emotional intelligence is present, but it’s vastly different to that of a neurotypical person. I found myself feeling so emotional on Martha’s behalf for the child she was and the things that were missing in the relationship she, in reality, had with her father.
When her life went off the rails, I wanted to hug her and tell her that how she felt was ok and it wasn’t something wrong with her.
This is a brave, beautiful and honest account of a life lived where you think you’re ok, until one day you’re not, and it feels like it’s out of the blue and it isn’t until later you realise that it was always coming to this point.
Martha, you are a superhero amongst authors, and a new hero of mine. You could have written a lot of this book about my life, and I’m so grateful for the courage you showed in writing this book, it will stay with me for a long time.
This is an astounding book, I truly loved it and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Read it, I promise you it’s worth it.
My thanks to the author, the publisher and to LoveBooksTours for gifting me this book. I am leaving this review of my own volition.

[John McCaffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m often asked by emerging writers for advice on how they might turn something real, what actually happened, into fiction. My usual answer might be deemed flippant, but I believe in its simplicity there is merit. I’ll say: “If you want to write about a parent who loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread, and in your story the parent loves peanut butter and jelly on rye toast, that is fiction.”

But I also believe there does not have to be a conscious choice to change facts to make something fictional. By the time a writer puts thoughts and memories to the page, the thoughts and memories have been transformed, have been changed, even if every-so-slightly. Perhaps, what I’m getting at is that all writing can be considered fiction. And as Thomas Hardy opined, “The best fiction is truer than history.”

Which brings me to Bliss Road by Martha Engber. Promoted as “A memoir about living a lie and coming to terms with the truth,” the book brims with details from Engber’s life as the daughter of a father with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). But what binds the work together, and makes it unique, is Engber’s creativity, her ability to turn first-hand experience, exacting research and informed insight into art. And a fast read. This is a page-turner, a text filled with intrigue and suspense, surprise twists and bursts of emotional unraveling and intellectual revelation.

Bliss Road is an important book, given that ASD affects over 75 million people worldwide. But it’s also important in style, a template for future memoirists who want to see how it's done when it comes to craft and pushing the envelope of narration and form.

[Cynthia Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many of us made sense of our childhood one way, only to later discover the truth?

With the first sentence of Martha Engber’s Bliss Road, I was in. “I was forty-one when my mom told me a disturbing story about my dad.” It’s an August evening and the two of them are sitting outside on a deck, a cold drink in hand.

But the reason I want to keep reading, even after we know the disturbing story, is because the way that first scene takes place is the way the author tells the story of this family—as if the reader is sitting beside her on a long ago August evening. The details are still there, and now so is clarity.

I loved so much about this memoir, but two things stood out to me. First, a moment. One time when the author called her mother as she was drawing, her mother told her “about the color of the pencil in her hand. A sea green, but would that do the trick? As quiet music played in the background, she wondered aloud if laying down a little tangerine first might illuminate an area from within. I remained quiet. Suspended in that moment of artistic reverie, we shared what truly mattered, being together during the creation of something beautiful. In that moment, I met my mother for the first time. A shy, artistic kid with curly hair and freckles, this was the real Norma.”

The second thing is how the author, after discovering the psychological impact of her father’s possible autism spectrum disorder, works together with her husband to create a more honest and meaningful relationship. Truly empowering.

[Julie Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and put together. A very interesting read.

Martha Engber was 41 when her mom told her something about her dad. What could it be? I liked this striking opening; straight to the point, it intrigues, and commands you to read on to find out.

One day Martha’s sister phones to tell her that her nephew had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. Could this run in families? Would that explain their dad’s sometimes erratic behaviour? She wonders is Asperger’s hereditary? At the time of them finding out for Brian in the 90s, they didn't know. This book certainly made me think.

The author is a journalist and she includes research facts as well as her own story; she mingles it, applicable to what's been happening in her own family. She traces back through the years; a chronology of findings related to these conditions; clues that were there etc. With medical historical facts mixed in.

I love medical memoirs-e.g. where something can be fixed surgically, so this was a bit out of my comfort zone and understanding at first. But this is a detailed examination, and there are other medical issues covered too.

I'm not so keen on poetry so I wasn’t so sure about the short poems; at the start of chapters. Not really to my taste, but I’m sure others will find they complement.

A family's story, a medical memoir, a document of the developments in recognising and diagnosing ASD. Well researched and put together. A very interesting read.

[Amanda Felton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure where to start with this book. This was a tough read for me it was a lot of information but the information was presented in a way that was tasteful and still part of the story which was so cool to read about. It's hard to read about times where they didn't know what was going on with people and their behaviors. I know for me when I was younger I struggled with reading and math I was diagnosed with a learning disability and had to go to a separate class for special math and reading. As a kid having to do this was so hard. I got bullied and made fun of for something I couldn't control. Reading this book made me see so much and understand things more clearly. |loved this story and how the author talks about her parents and the effects she had while growing up with a parent that had Asperger's. I just related to this story so much. I lost my mom 7 years ago and after she died my dad shut down and it was like we were seeing him for the first time without my mom. It was a hard thing to witness and tough all around especially when you're used to being open with a parent to now being closed off cause that other parent didn't understand you or your feelings so you just had to stuff them down. This book hit it all for me.
It's a book I will go back to for sure. I will also buy this book to have. Everyone needs to read this!! I love this author everyone needs to check her out !!! Can’t wait to see what else she comes up with

[Frances Rivetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Martha Engber is not alone as the adult child of an undiagnosed, neurodiverse parent. Times have changed with today’s mass identification and testing of previously categorized “quiet” and/or “quirky” or “overactive” personalities, yet Engber’s story is likely mirrored by millions of people who were unwittingly raised in the psychological minefield of a mother or father with life-long, undetected Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Her poignant and profound memoir, Bliss Road, trailblazes with painstaking precision and humility through the psychological minefield of growing up with a handsome, brilliant, blue-eyed, socially awkward and peculiar father whose seemingly invisible surface battle with ASD is beginning to emerge as its own phenomenon.
Reference to historical landmark studies in the Autism Spectrum highlight the fact that the focus has always been on identifying and helping neurodiverse kids and their parents, but the spotlight has yet to acknowledge the suffering endured by the surviving children of neurodiverse parents.
Engber’s story is a powerful coming-of-age in her fifties, as she came to terms with the complex environment of her formative years and its impact on her own life, marriage and kids. A must-read for better understanding of neurodiversity and the case for never again attempting to sweep it under the carpet.

[Carolyn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kierkegaard mused that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Martha Engber’s memoir, Bliss Road, is a powerfully moving testament to this precept. Raised by a father with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder and a mother who does her best to mediate and soothe the interactions between her husband and her three daughters, the book chronicles her youth as a neurotypical member of a family in silent crisis, and its subsequent impact on her adult life.

ASD, which affects over 75 million people worldwide, wouldn’t become an identified neurological condition until decades after the author’s childhood and adolescence. Her memoir is prismatic, a narrative that evolves through shifting frames of reference as her father’s “quirkiness” begins to be understood by the adult author as something beyond the ability of her family to have negotiated. Their circumstances were unnamable, their pain literally unspeakable; it would be many years before the author would be able to provide context for her experience and find the language through which to interpret and interrogate her own history. These revelations would, in turn, spawn others. Eventually, they upend Engber’s life.

Bliss Road ‘s evocative poetry and prose pulses with an unblinking honesty, and a voice that seems to transmit emotional truth directly onto the page. A must read.

[Carolyn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kierkegaard mused that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Martha Engber’s memoir, Bliss Road, is a powerfully moving testament to this precept. Raised by a father with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder and a mother who does her best to mediate and soothe the interactions between her husband and her three daughters, the book chronicles her youth as a neurotypical member of a family in silent crisis, and its subsequent impact on her adult life.

ASD, which affects over 75 million people worldwide, wouldn’t become an identified neurological condition until decades after the author’s childhood and adolescence. Her memoir is prismatic, a narrative that evolves through shifting frames of reference as her father’s “quirkiness” begins to be understood by the adult author as something beyond the ability of her family to have negotiated. Their circumstances were unnamable, their pain literally unspeakable; it would be many years before the author would be able to provide context for her experience and find the language through which to interpret and interrogate her own history. These revelations would, in turn, spawn others. Eventually, they upend Engber’s life.

Bliss Road ‘s evocative poetry and prose pulses with an unblinking honesty, and a voice that seems to transmit emotional truth directly onto the page. A must read.

[Ian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the most powerful family memoirs are ones where the writers look deep inside themselves, and Bliss Road is no exception. The opening sections form an in-depth look at autism through Engber's father, whose withdrawn nature, violent outbursts, and inability to empathize with others paint a vivid picture of what it's like to live with a family member with this neurodivergence. Such accounts, while bolstered by a historical timeline tracing the understanding of autism through the decades, make for a more vivid read than a nonfiction discussion alone, and was the portion of the book I found most illuminating.

The latter, and almost equally powerful sections, deal with Engber's understanding of how growing up with an autistic father affected her own relationships, particularly with her children, and include moments of brutally honest reflection. The book's cover describes the author as "living a lie," and at its core, Bliss Road tackles the issues that so many of us deal with but either don't have names for or avoid entirely -- that feeling that things "just aren't right," though we take pains to make them appear all hunky-dorey on the surface. In this respect, Engber's story will resonate equally well for readers without autistic family members, who themselves need to come to terms with their own truth.

[Sonja Charters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read one of Martha's novels in the past, it was a no-brainer to sign up to read this book too. Despite being a memoir, I just knew that Martha's writing style would make this an amazing read.

I loved that Martha grabs you on page 1 with a shocker of a statement and question, leaving you instantly pulled to read on.

I actually found this a bit tricky to read as the content talks about dealing with ASD, and my son is on the spectrum.
But, as well as including heart-wrenching anecdotes, we also see Martha write with some humour too, which breaks up the tension.
There are also added medical research facts which span over 20years which I found fascinating. The huge difference in how asd is diagnosed and dealt with over the years was really interesting - although I know for sure, that we're definitely not there with resources.

I loved the honesty of the writing and found so many similarities in our stories, which instantly made me feel a bond and kept me reading. I also spent lots of it with tears in my eyes....but because the writing was so emotive.

A brilliant book which I think everyone should read - even if ASD doesn't affect you personally - the information in here could help so many understand the condition a little more and become a little more accepting.