Tao Lin cured his autism. You can cure yours, too
...Now that his landmark Mars Review piece is out from behind the paywall, that is.
Tao Lin’s Mars Review of Books essay “The Story of Autism: How We Got Here, How We Heal” is one of those rare magazine pieces—like Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” Ta-Nahesi Coates’s “The Case for Reparations,” or Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”—which causes a true cultural stir.
Yet the piece almost didn’t happen. I suggested to Tao that he write about autism after reading his numerous blog posts on the subject. He was more inclined to write about aliens. He asked his Twitter followers whether he should write about autism or about aliens for the Mars Review of Books. The Twitter audience responded overwhelmingly in favor of autism and so it was settled. Score one for democracy. Now we’ve even got T-shirts memorializing the article.
The piece has become a meme, and the meme is fun. But it obscures the fact that this a serious subject. Lin describes a major public health disaster, and scrupulously backs up his claims with immense scholarship. Democratic Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. recently discussed similar themes in a podcast broadcast to millions. Yet legacy publications still won’t touch this issue? Why?
We’ve unpaywalled this piece in part because of its benefit to the public. We hope you’ll do the job and spread the word. The more people talk about the MRB, and the more people subscribe, the better we’ll be able to keep doing what we’re doing.
Thank you as always for your support,
Noah Kumin
Editor in Chief
Mars Review of Books