Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach

(288 pages)



The new novel from Marti Leimbach, author of the internationally best-selling "Dying Young".
My husband saw me at a party and decided he wanted to marry me. Melanie Marsh is an American living in London married to Stephen, the perfect Englishman, who knew the minute he saw her that she was to be his future. But when their youngest child is diagnosed with autism their marriage starts to unravel at great speed. Stephen runs back into the arms of his previous girlfriend while Melanie does everything in her power to help her son and keep her family together. And then one day Melanie hears about a man named Andy O'Connor, who calls himself a "play therapist" and has a client list so long she can barely get him on the phone. Some say he's a maverick and a con artist of the first degree, but when he walks into the house and starts playing with her child, Melanie knows she's found the key to her son's success, and possibly to her own happiness. "Daniel Isn't Talking" is a passionate and darkly humorous novel that explores a mother's determination to help her child. A love story for grown ups, it somehow extends its wisdom far beyond the parameters of disability and into the substance of human nature itself. A tense, moving novel that will make you laugh at loud even as it breaks your heart.

Melanie is an American living in London. She has everything… a house a handsome English husband and two beautiful children. But Daniel her youngest child isn’t like other children. He doesn’t talk and has a strange obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine. She finds out after visiting numerous specialists that Daniel is autistic. Stephen (her husband) thinks that this is as good as a death sentence and wants Daniel to be enrolled in a special school as soon as possible. Melanie on the other hand is determined for Daniel to be like any other child and seeks help from every corner. Amongst Melanie’s desperation the marriage falls apart, but she does find Andy, a play therapist who is supposed to be able to work wonders. And he does. Before long Daniel is playing and talking, and a new love is blossoming, but can Melanie find a new happiness?
This novel is absolutely wonderful. It pulls you through all the emotions imaginable and Melanie is so endearing and strong that you wished you knew her! There is nothing she wont do for Daniel, including pawning her engagement ring and selling half her furniture. Through all the sorrow and hardships, Melanie always manages to find hope, sometimes at the expense of her own happiness, but she is so believable. You feel what she feels, cry when she cries and ultimately, are ecstatic for her when she makes the right decisions for herself.
In Melanie, Marti Leimbach has created an unlikely hero, bringing to the fore the humanity of families with disabled children and the hope there is for them, warts and all. It was totally unputdownable.