Secrets and silences

The secret cure

Sue Woolfe. Melbourne: Picador, 2004 (444 pp) ISBN 0 3304 2124 7

In a fictitious Australian town, the central character, Owen, who has spent most of his life confined to his home and is completely mute, allows himself a month in the real world, posing as a hospital maintenance worker. From afar he falls in love with Eva, an exuberantly dressed but painfully shy laboratory assistant. Most of the book is a record of his outrageously voyeuristic attempts to spy on Eva and her scientist lover Gunther, whom he tries to discredit in order to replace him in Eva’s affections. These “spying” passages could make some readers uncomfortable, as it is difficult to know how much Woolfe expects us to suspend our disbelief. However, it is worth pushing through this to enjoy the book’s main themes.

Each character in the story, however peripheral, harbours a secret — and, in some way, everyone is mute. This obvious metaphor forms a good canvas for Woolfe’s exploration of Asperger syndrome and, of course, that substance whose secrets have galvanised scientists since its discovery over 50 years ago — DNA.

Why do people do science? The characters in this book have compelling reasons for their obsessive (and, in Eva’s case, illegal) pursuit of a cause and a cure for Asperger syndrome and, while you might have to suspend your disbelief a little more to swallow Woolfe’s conclusion, it is wonderful to believe that secrets can be known and silences broken.

Ruth M ArmstrongDeputy EditorMedical Journal of Australia, Pyrmont, NSW