The Ride Together : A Brother and Sister's Memoir of Autism in the Family

by Judy Karasik, Paul Karasik

Meet the Karasiks, a typical middle-class 1960s one mother, one father, one daughter, and three sons, one of whom, David, has autism.The Ride Together is an extraordinary family memoir told in alternating chapters of comics and text. With a narrative that stretches over nearly fifty years, Paul and Judy Karasik -- he writes with pictures, she with words -- unite to relate the story of their family, their brother David, and the history of their relationship with him. In doing so, each comes to understand the responsibility David represents and the meaning his life gives theirs.In the pages of The Ride Together, David grows from child to man, remaining dependent on others, even as he witnesses his siblings leaving home -- and him -- for careers and lives of their own. He speaks in a code of his own; he performs his own versions of The Adventures of Superman and Face the Nation; he writes page after page of television synopses.What he understands of life and death no one can truly tell, yet David walks through his days with dignity and, as it turns out, endurance.At first glance the adventure of this book is its brilliant experiment of form -- the story of a brother with autism told in a style that is as unusual as the subject matter. But The Ride Together goes deeper than It takes a family that may appear strange to some -- like many families with disabilities -- and reveals a group of people whose acceptance of what life has dealt them helps them persevere through good times and bad.Praised by writers for its craft and by families for its authenticity, The RideTogether provides a remarkable portrait of a family with a difference.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Nonfiction, Memoir, Graphic Novels, Disability, Comics

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Dov Zeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a memoir by sister and brother team Judy and Paul Karasik. I believe these are the youngest siblings in a family with four kids--David, Michael, Judy, and Paul (in order of age?). I had to send the book back to the library, which makes reviewing it a bit challenging. But there are segments of it on Google Books and so I can see chapter names and am able to access a few of the chapters.

There are eighteen chapters in all, broken up into five chronological sections. Judy Karasik writes the prose chapters and her brother Paul the comics/graphic-sequential-art chapters. Their stories alternate and for the most part go chronologically except for the first chapter which begins near the end, in 1995. Then, back to 1953 and gradually forward.

Judy and Paul Karasik are middle-aged when they write this, and they tell the tale of their lives growing up and becoming adults with an older brother who is autistic and has (other) developmental disabilities (not all people consider autism a developmental disability). The book wonderfully details what it is like to grow up in a house in which a lot of the focus revolves around care taking and working to make the home safe, comfortable, and manageable for an autistic and disabled sibling. At times it's frustrating for the other kids to have so much of their parents' attention focused on their brother, to constantly have to worry about doing things that put their brother David (sometimes called Dave) in distress and about who they invite into the house... In addition to the effort put into creating a home that supports David and keeping him as comfortable as possible, Judy and Paul also have to deal with their short-tempered though at times charming father, which seems a bit of a challenge (it was hard to fully get a read on what kind of parent he was, and I don't have any memory of their mother, which is strange. She is in the book).

At a certain point their mother's mother dies and their 95 year old grandfather and their mother's severely developmentally disabled sister come and live in the house, too. What a full house! And what a lot of responsibility for the kids. It's pretty great to see a family so dedicated to taking care of other family members. But it's clear that it does require a lot of Judy and Paul.

There is a hired caretaker who works at the house and is an honorary family member, Dorothy White. She is an important person in the book. She's a black female caretaker who does a lot of emotional labor and in moments I worried the book wouldn't handle this in an honest and appropriately conscientious way. I'm still not sure, but she definitely reads as someone who is respected and appreciated. And when tragedy strikes her family, the two families do seem to support each other. In one of the most intense scenes in the book, it's night time, Judy's parents are out, and her grandfather is distraught and groaning in discomfort and the night-time nurse who was hired to be there (not Dorothy) is ignoring him. Judy calls Dorothy crying, and Dorothy comes over and sends the other nurse home and attends to the grandfather. His discomfort turned out to be a simple problem, not hard to solve. But the other nurse had chosen to ignore it, and she had been doing so for some time. It was haunting. A haunting reminder of all the many things that can go wrong with (health) care providers...all the ways they find to callously dismiss other people's pain/experiences. And how a little bit of listening and attentiveness can often resolve a problem.

Later in the book the issue of abusive care-providers comes up again and this time it has to do with a facility where David was living--a place the Karisik parents had really supported (they did a lot of activist type work). It's super upsetting and disturbing, but important, and I think it's handled with appropriate care, though in moments I think it could have been contextualized and explored a little more. It's horrifying to think of the abuse that goes on behind closed doors of so many places that are supposed to be supporting vulnerable people/communities. It's comforting that in this case the abuse is addressed, though hard to know that so often it goes on and on and on...

The last section of the book is the section the title is named for. "The Ride Together." It's a theme that comes up a few times in the book (little road trips.) This chapter takes place in 2001, and brings us to the book's present with a family that is deeply flawed but still deeply connected. At first I found the back and forth between prose and comics in the book, and the two points of view, a bit distracting. But the writing was quite good and I got used to the rhythm and pacing and voices and by the end found that I wasn't quite ready to let it go. I wanted to continue getting to know David and Judy and Paul and see how their stories continued.

[Debi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent this day reading through this book. It's an easy, quick, read.
The book is honest. It looks at the truth and states what happens clearly and without sentimentality. The mix of narrative prose and comics works for me.
I don't think the book is particularly funny, as many of the reviewers state. It did make me cry once or twice. I have a son with autism...not as "challenged" as David Karasik but none the less, on the spectrum. I recognize many of the behaviors described in the book, and I know many of the fears, the anxieties, and the awkwardness. I appreciate the truthfulness in this book.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited about this book and ready to love it, and I walked away frustrated and disappointed. As a sibling to someone with autism, I've always wanted books that I could relate to, that talk about the sibling experience... especially from a "grown up" perspective. I hoped that this book would talk about family dynamics and how autism impacted their ability to relate to others outside the family (they briefly mention this when saying they only invited friends they knew they could trust). Instead, I felt the book merely reported what happened. For others mentioning that the book lack sentimentality (and they liked that), that's what I missed. I also found the writing style a bit difficult to follow at times.

[Mika Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this four stars because I couldn't put it down (probably why it was finished in about a day).
This book was a delight to read, from the rich storytelling to the entertaining comics
that I looked forward to every chapter. I really felt the nostalgia of the story as it
progressed and came to a close, it felt like a real, honest journey.
There were a few things I would have liked differently, preferably more detail on David, the
character with Autism. Overall it left some things to be wondered, but I liked it.

[Juliefrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really quite lovely brother-sister memoir of growing up with their autistic brother, told part in essay and part in graphic format.

[Sarah Rigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is told in alternate chapters by a brother and sister, with the sister using a more traditional prose memoir writing style, and the brother doing his chapters in graphics novel style. The book tells the story of growing up with their profoundly autistic brother David. I really liked this story a lot, even though it has many sad moments, from a fire that kills two disabled people to the revelation that the group home that the family thought was so good for David turns out to have allegations of sexual and physical abuse brought against it. One thing I didn't like: the brother and sister more than once refer to David's brain as being "broken" in some way, a phrase I almost never see autistic people using about themselves. However, this book is full of warmth, love and humor, and, overall, I really liked it. It does highlight why I strongly prefer to read books about disability that are actually by people living the experience, though.

[Sara Hernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an extraordinary book. My younger brother has autism and his name is also David. Althought the espectrum is broad, you can perceive here all the little things that make life a bit different and sometimes heartbreaking, but also, always filled by inconditional love and understanding, as the family grews old, there are too many changes, and many unpredictable situations, just like any other family in the world. Autism comes in many ways, and it´s beautiful to see it portrait in such a raw, fun, relatable and loving way. Very very close to my heart.

[Grace Carver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay story of a two siblings lives along side a sibling with autism. Ultimately, perspectives seemed bias in their retellings at times, and I was constantly left wondering on what David’s perspective would be.

[Cristal Peña · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Es un libro muy bien formado mostrando la vivencia de una familia con un integrante con autismo, fue maravillosa la experiencia de leer este libro puesto que al contar la vida misma de los escritores la vez como si te la estuvieran contando en persona directamente.

[Jami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a wonderful read & a creative presentation.

[Maryann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very moving memoir reminiscent of a situation within my extended family.

[Sam Oxford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there are just enough moments of empathy/understanding to make this salvageable, but I don't think it's great. Despite it's title saying it's about autism, the book does not center David, the sole autistic character. It instead centers the family, and David is frequently characterized in a condescending way, and operates more as a burden to the family than as a part of the family, if that makes any sense. It's more about care taking than about autism.

I think the parts where the narrators try to show what David was going through, and the parts about the troubles and horrors of mental health institutions are very good. It's an interesting text, but it has a lot of problems.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. The concept of alternating between comics and narrative-- with one sibling contributing the comics and the other the prose-- was fresh and intriguing. However, in both types of chapters I found myself unable to keep the "characters" separate from one another. In the comics, this was due to inconsistent portrayals; in the prose, it was because Karasik had a tendency to use three or four names interchangeably for each person she discussed. The result was that I spent a good portion of my time flipping back to figure out who was being talked about, rather than being immersed in the story they were trying to tell.

That said, both authors did a good job portraying their lives with David in a was that was easy for me to connect to, presenting both the trials and the joys of their lives with him clearly. In addition, it was nice to see an autism memoir that dealt with more than just childhood, and that was written by siblings rather than parents.

[Sheri S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ride Together is an interesting mix of text and comic about what it is like to have an autistic brother. The authors are a brother and sister of David, an autistic man, and they describe their beloved brother and his sometimes challenging behavior. David is obsessed with various television shows and reenacts them according to a time schedule known only to him. As the siblings get older, their feelings toward their brother appear to soften and their ongoing concern for his well-being becomes even more apparent.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stirring memoir of living with a family member on the Spectrum. The alternating chapters, in prose and comics, provide extraordinary access to multiple sibling perspectives on growing up (and growing old) with a brother with autism over half a century, a time span much longer than that afforded by most traditional parent-written memoirs of autism. Unsparing and unsentimental, yet deeply humane.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good antidote to the book I just read, Secret Girl, by Molly Bruce Jacob. A much more nuanced and interesting book about growing up with an autistic sibling. They're still a nightmare family to me but at least they talk to each other.

2024: Wow, I just re-read this and now feel very differently about this book and the family. Just a pure nightmare.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book it is introducing new things to that I never knew. It is a good book that everyone should read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this part-written, part-drawn memoir.

[Riann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! I liked that the story of the family was told from the perspective of the sister(Judy) through words and by one of the brothers(Paul) through a comic strip!

[Laura Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read fast read