“So far the votes are two Asperger’s, one probable OCD, and one possible ADHD.”
This quote is in reference to Theo’s son, Robin. A major narrative trek is Robin’s unspecified emotional behavior problem and one of the major themes the novel pursues is the proper way to treat such a disorder. Theo is definitely opposed to using drug treatments like Ritalin or Adderall (despite evidence they offer great relief in in some cases) and is even more bewilderingly in opposition to simple psychotherapy. Theo’s resistance to the more conventional approaches of treating whatever condition it is that Robin actually suffers from becomes all the more controversial when he instead opts for a truly experimental approach using neurofeedback that some readers might be far more likely to view as wacky or damaging than drugs or psychology.
A spark passed between Martin and me. I read it without any feedback training at all. The man’s eyes shied away from mine, and I knew. My whole program of willful ignorance fell apart, revealing the truth beneath a suspicion I’d nursed forever. It wasn’t just my own bottomless insecurity: I never knew my wife of a dozen years. She was a planet all her own.
Complicating matters even more is that the person whom Theo chooses to place his trust in treating his son is fellow birder and associated of his late wife, Alyssa. Alyssa is dead by the time the novel begins, but her presence hovers over the entire present-time of the text. Much is learned about her past through flashbacks and recollections and one of them is that the doctor whose experimental technique Theo is relying upon to relieve his son of his problems—Martin—had a thing for his dead wife. More to the point here, however, is the portrait of Alyssa that is alluded to here. A definite biological link is suggested to bind Robin’s difficulties with Aly’s complicated personality.
Robin fell hard, as only a nine-year-old can fall for an older woman. But his was that rare love—pure gratitude untroubled by need or desire. In one go, Inga Alder opened my son’s feedback-primed mind to a truth I myself never quite grasped: the world is an experiment in inventing validity, and conviction is its only proof.
Theo has watched as his son falls in love—from afar and second-hand—with a fourteen-year-old environmental activist from Europe who also deals with autism. No, her name isn’t Greta…but it’s close. Inga Alder is a minor character who plays a major role in Robin’s treatment—however briefly—who cannot be confused with any other historical analogue who has ever lived but renowned activist Greta Thunberg. In Inga, Robin has found a soulmate who not only believes like he does, but seems to be like he is. It is more than merely falling in love with a celebrity, it is coming across that person who became a celebrity despite dealing with all those problems you deal with (even though it is never explicitly mandated that Robin himself is certifiably autistic). Another major theme pursued in the narrative is the slow extinction of the planet as humanity has come to know it for all these thousands of years. The death of planet earth is juxtaposed thematically with the death of Alyssa as a way of exploring the stages of grief and the mourning for something that can never be brought back.
