This book fascinated and annoyed me in equal measure. Rowan is a six year old, highly autistic lad who can't connect with any children, can only babble like a baby and can't control his rages or his bowels. One thing Rowan can do though is connect with horses, and Betsy, who lives in the field behind their house, is Rowan's best friend. Rupert,the Dad is an experienced horse rider and he comes up with a plan to take Rowan into Mongolia to ride with the horses there and meet the shamans. Rupert is disallusioned with western approaches to autism so decides to put his trust into the Mongolian outback, Mongolian horses and the shamens there.
The story of Rupert, his wife and Rowan's adventures across the Mongolian plains are well told but I always had a strong feeling of scepticism in the back of my mind. Rupert was already a travel writer and had organised rights for this book he was going to write and they were also travelling with a film crew as he had sold the rights of a documentary for nearly 200,000 pounds before they even left for Asia. They also had to pay the reindeer shamans 500 US dollars before they would even see Rowan. Rupert's worries about his son are well told, heartbreaking and honest but ultimately I had the feeling that Rupert was basically writing about himself and how Rowan affected him. Do not expect a self help book about how to deal with autism. Honestly there is no guidance, all Rupert does is slag off the approaches of the West.
The hardships of his wife ( who was never that keen to go to Mongolia in the first place) are barely mentioned. She just seemed to quietly and diligently follow behind saying jack shit. When one of the shamens said that Rowan's problems were because of his wife's 'black waters ' in her womb and also because of a mad deranged Aunty on the mother's side of the family having 'control' over Rowan I almost spit out my beer! His poor wife was ordered down to the river to wash out her black waters in her birth canal whilst the bloody TV crew filmed it. More fool her is all I can say!!!
Anyway, suffice to say Rowan came back after 3 months toilet trained. To be honest I think it was a bloody long way to take a kid to get them toilet trained...but hey good memories for them all! A holiday of a life time. The one thing I do truely believe in though is the power of animals to sooth and help children. ( all children). In my world though I think a dog or a hamster might do the job just as well! Ultimately though the author is a man who I found incredibly irritating yet fascinating. A hippy with a strong love for fox hunting. A devoted husband who barely seemed to acknowledge his wife's existence. (Even the cover blurb of the book annoyed me. It wasn't just him who was trying to cure his son. His wife was also there too. ) He was a devoted father who was always analysing how his son's extreme autism affected himself and a qualified travel writer who organised a way to use his son to further expand his travel writing profile. A strange reading experience for me! But hey, he did write about Mongolia really well!
