Autistic Reader Interview: Michael Helsem
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
M.H. was born in Dallas in 1958. Shortly afterwards, fish fell from the sky.” (--I usually go with.) Lower-middleclass upbringing, father on the spectrum (engineer), mother introverted with verbal talents. Sleepy, somewhat backward suburb of a regional capital. Sci-fi, bicycle childhood. Tested very highly in both Language & Math. Majored in Physics, then changed after Three Mile Island. Writing poetry since 1971. Went on European tour in second year college. Started publishing. Took year off to hitchhike around USA. Briefly edited a poetry zine. Married another poet in 1999. Wrote in conlangs besides: Esperanto, Volapük, Lojban, Vorlin. Also painted.
Other than what's in your bio, is there anything about your connection to autism, books, and reading that you'd like to share?
For several years i participated in the Wrong Planet forums, later reblogging some of my contributions on the “Monkey-Picked Aspie” blog, & used a number of these for the fix-up book Saktranomicon. I am not formally diagnosed, but anyone who knows me would recognize that i share a lot of the traits.
What are you reading right now?
I am reading a novel (Valentine’s Day gift) with Edgar Allan Poe as a detective (Pale Blue Eye). I just finished rereading one of my favorite books, Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Not long ago i finally finished reading my 1810 edition of Peregrine Pickle, which i’d had sitting on the shelf for years (it was getting too hard to read until I got my new glasses). During lockdown i read The Faerie Queene.
What are you looking forward to reading soon?
Living with a Dead Language: My Romance with Latin. Hopefully some more Caitlin Kiernan, Elizabeth Hand, & there’s a couple of later China Miévilles i need to catch up on. (I mostly can’t afford to buy the books new.)
What are some of your favorite works of fiction?
Geek Love, Curzio Malaparte’s The Skin, Bleak House, Nova, The Man Who was Thursday, Perdido Street Station, Nightwood, Under the Volcano, Finnegans Wake, Against the Grain. Smilla’s Sense of Snow. The Man in the High Tower. Anything by Ronald Firbank, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Virginia Woolf, & my guilty pleasure, the non-Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer. And of course R A Lafferty (who’s read all of him?)… Lafferty anyway is definitely autistic.
What makes them your favorites?
Generally, complex themes along with scrupulous attention to style. Rare flavors. As i once put it: Magic, Music, Mystery.
What are some of the characters in fiction that you find most relatable?
I don’t read to see myself in fiction (perhaps in philosophy?). I like moods, landscapes & atmospheres, idiosyncratic world-building.
Are there any tropes you really, especially love?
I love a big twist that completely changes the meaning of what came before.
Are there any tropes you really, especially hate?
Agonistic & hero-driven plots. That’s not really how the world works, & i feel a little bit insulted by having to pretend that it does.
Have you ever had a special interest in a fiction series or genre of fiction?
I read Tolkien at what I consider the ideal age—13. A few multi-volume works since: Golden Witchbreed, the Sugar Rain books (Paul Park), Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. Daniel Abraham’s exquisite Long Price Quartet, Gwyneth Jones’s five Arthurian books (which I had to order special from England).
What makes a work of fiction special-interest-worthy for you - or do the interests seem to descend at random?
It has to be awfully well written for me to stick with one author’s voice for so long.
This month at Everything Is True, we’re interviewing a wide variety of autistic readers with questions like these! You can find a schedule with the rest of the interviews here.