This classic work tells the tale of how a devoted mother accomplished miracles in fostering the intellectual, social and emotional development of her autistic daughter.

Exiting Nirvana" is a strong and affecting profile of an artist with autism, beautifully written by her mother. . . . Skillfully weaving in theories of autism with the experience of raising an autistic child, Park goes beyond individual history to address the wider question of what it means to be human."--from the National Magazine Awards presentation.

"Rejoining the Common Reader" is suffused with the impulse that motivates Clara Claiborne Park's distinguished writing and teaching: the desire to related literature to the experience of its readers. This humane, balanced, and entertaining book will appeal to anyone who longs to recapture the pleasure of reading for personal enrichment and to teachers of literature who have grown to resent the intrusiveness of theory and theorizing and wish to reexamine what they are doing to, for, and with their students.