When the Scottish comedian Fern Brady phoned her father to say she had been diagnosed with autism, he was on his daily commute back from London. He said, “Oh right”, and began complaining about the traffic. Brady replied: “Well, they say autism can be inherited from one parent, so I guess that’s answered the question of which one.”
Strong Female Character, written and narrated by Brady, and winner of the inaugural Nero award for nonfiction, documents the turmoil of growing up with undiagnosed autism, during which she excelled academically but struggled with sensory overload and had violent outbursts that baffled her family, teachers and peers. After she began self-harming, her parents sent her to an adolescent psychiatric unit where she was a day patient. She was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, though she knew that wasn’t the whole story. It took until she was 34 to get an autism diagnosis.
Brady narrates much like she writes: with candour, deadpan humour and abject fury at how society and even the medical profession misunderstand neurodivergence. She was once told by a psychiatrist that she couldn’t be autistic because she was able to look people in the eye and had boyfriends. Autism, she reveals, is more frequently missed in women since they are generally better at “masking” than men – a skill that allowed her to complete her degree and make it in standup. Memoirs by comics are ten a penny, but this one isn’t the tale of Brady’s slow climb to success. It’s a fount of information and a moving expression of solidarity for others who, like her, are “wired differently”.
• Strong Female Character is available via Brazen, 6hr 44 min
Further listening
Shōgun, Part One
James Clavell, Blackstone Publishing, 24hr 18min
Ralph Lister narrates the bestselling 1975 novel, recently adapted as a TV series on Disney+, in which an Englishman is lost at sea and washes up in 17th-century Japan.
Medusa
Jessie Burton, Bloomsbury, 3hr 41min
A feminist reimagining of the Greek myth. Alisha Bailey reads this YA novel by the author of The Miniaturist.
