Autism in fiction

I’ve recently been reading a slew of books that deal with lead characters that are on the autism spectrum, most recently “Ginny Moon” by Benjamin Ludwig. Writing in the first person is quite an exercise for the reader – at least for me, as it makes me feel slightly autistic myself. Another recent read was “Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman – while Eleanor may not technically be autistic (Asperger’s), she does seem to lack basic social clues. Don Tillman, in “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion, is also a brilliant narrator who misses obvious social clues, but somehow still wins the girl. One of the first books that I read which also had this type of  first person narrator with autism: “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” by Mark Haddon. All of these books have an amazing ability to put yourself into the every day world of someone with autism (and many of these can be found at the Long Island Community Library).