His first book was about the Grateful Dead. His second, about autism, has just taken the Samuel Johnson prize. Meet neuro-warrior Steve Silberman, friend of Allen Ginsberg and ‘gay coach’ to Oliver Sacks
Steve Silberman hasn’t slept: a combination of jetlag, excitement and genuine surprise at winning the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction. These morning-after interviews with happy, sleepy authors can be rather ritualised, but Silberman is a delight: a bulky (think John Goodman) American whose black braces just about keep his baggy trousers up, and who talks non-stop about his book – a history of changing perceptions of autism over the past 80 years – and the curious art-meets-science life that produced it.
Neurotribes is the first popular science book to win the prize – an important breakthrough, he says, not least because “science is under attack in America, particularly from Republican party presidential candidates. Ben Carson, who is himself a doctor, touts his disbelief in evolution.” Silberman reckons the book won because it combines “history, science and real-time interactions with people”, and that the judges responded to its optimistic conclusion that people with autism, marginalised for so long despite having much to offer, were being embraced at last.
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