Writer Rupert Isaacson explains how he knew his autistic son was healed when he began telling stories
Rupert and his son Rowan
Travel writer Rupert Isaacson is an author, journalist and human rights activist. He’s written six travel guidebooks as well as two guides to adventure sports. He also writes for Conde Nast Traveller, the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday, Esquire and National Geographic Traveller. His latest book is The Horse Boy, a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller, which is accompanied by a documentary. Rupert tells us how his background as a writer showed him a way to help his autistic son, Rowan, and led his family on a remarkable journey to visit the reindeer people of Mongolia.
It’s three years since you visited Mongolia. How is Rowen now?
He’s phenomenal! He’s eight years old now and his dysfunctional behaviours, the incontinence, the tantrumming and the inability to make friends, are all just a memory now. But he’s still autistic. I see autism as a skillset, not something to cure. He’s still is authentic self, but if you met him now you’d think he was just a quirky little boy, not someone on the spectrum.
Rowan’s improvements occurred after a healing ceremony with Ghoste, the shaman of the reindeer people but Ghoste told us to keep doing it so in 2008 we went to the Bushmen of Namibia and last year I was in Australia for work so we took Rowan to an Aboriginal shaman. In 2010 we plan to find a native American shaman close to our home in Austen, Texas, and maybe in 2011 we’ll go to the Sámi people of Scandinavia - they’re the last shamanic tribe in Europe and they’re reindeer people too.
But we also continue with Western therapies. I’m not an extremist, I’m a practical guy, and if something works I’ll try it again. Rowan has behavioural therapy a few times a week. Really we do whatever works.
What inspired you to become a writer?
The first pieces I was paid to write were about horses, written for horse magazines when I was a 19-year-old starting out as a freelance writer. It was a great place to learn the trade and build up my confidence before I started approaching the nationals.
My grandparents were journalists, so becoming a journalist was a natural career path for me. One of the signs that Rowen was making real progress came when he began making up stories. He’s doing this more and more and the stories are becoming increasingly complex. It’s interesting that it’s something that in the blood.
How did you come to specialise in travel writing?
I’ve been a travel writer for many years, mainly producing guidebooks but also writing for newspapers and magazines. Through that I drifted into writing about environmental issues, and through that into covering human rights issues for publications in the UK and America. That led to be becoming involved in advocating the rights of African tribes to their land, and the year Rowan was diagnosed I was working with Namibia’s shamanic tribes, which gave me the first hint of how shamanic healing might help Rowan.
So my writing led to me learning about shamans, which resulted in our journey to Mongolia and Rowan overcoming the dysfunctions associated with autism.
Did you face much rejection initially?
Oh yes! I still do! Not every idea gets accepted, but if you throw enough mud at the wall, something sticks eventually.
But I’ve learnt that being rejected isn’t always a bad thing. You shouldn’t get discouraged by rejections - something that gets rejected one year may get picked up the next.
I’ve got unpublished novels sitting in my drawer, in particular a historical romance that everyone loved, but which everyone rejected. I’ve got rejection letters where publishers says how much they enjoyed it, but they can’t take it and can’t tell me why.
I finally realised that there was a chunk missing, that I needed to include part of the sequel to make the novel work. Rejection can help you to refine and improve a project.
But I still throw tantrums when I get rejections!
What made you decide to write The Horse Boy?
I hope it will add to the body of what’s known about autism. When Rowen was diagnosed, much of the available information was contradictory - there was no consensus. It’s partly because its different in each child’s case.
I hope the book raises the question of whether autism is a problem to be solved or a skillset to be nurtured.
The dysfunctions need to be addressed, but aside from those autism can be very beautiful, full of opportunities for a family. You can work on the dysfunctions while encouraging the skills inherent to autism.
In The Horse Boy you’re incredibly open. How do you know where to draw the line about how much to reveal about your life?
You just have to tell the story without holding back. You can’t include every aspect of your life as not all are relevant to the story, but other than that everything that happened went onto the page.
In a sense it’s a work of journalism, with me following Rowan. As long as I kept my focus on him, the rest of it would find the right balance. My years of training as a journalist helped with that. Us as a family inevitably came through as a backdrop, but it’s Rowan’s story. Put simply, you have to keep your eye on the ball, and in this case the ball is Rowan.
What do you find the biggest challenges of writing?
Actually sitting down and putting words on a document. It’s an irrational thing - however much I know that when I finally start to write it will take care of itself, I find it difficult to make myself begin. Part of it is fear - the fear of being rejected and of not writing something good. I have to remind myself that the most important thing is to sit down and write the thing, and that I can always go back and make it good later.
What do you enjoy most about it?
The ecstatic feeling of the creative process. I don’t write because I want to write - there are easier ways to make a living. I write because I’m compelled to. When I’m writing I feel that I’m living my authentic self.
And it’s a damn interesting way to make an income.
What advice would you offer an aspiring writer?
Be interested in stuff. I’m interested in everything. I have a very curious nature. The more you cultivate that quality in yourself, the more open you’ll be to intellectual and physical adventures, and the more stories will come your way.
Life is more miraculous than any fiction, but whatever genre you write in will benefit from the experiences you live. Even science fiction is based in the dynamics of human relationships.
Follow your interests and the stories will come.
What are you working on now?
There will be a follow-up to the book of The Horse Boy, which I hope will be more of a collaboration, written as much as possible in Rowan’s words.
I’m also working on improving the historical romance, which is pure fun.
For more on The Horse Boy, please visit www.horseboymovie.com
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