My Beautiful Disaster: My Brain Injury, My Gift, My Life.

Derek Amato’s reflections in My Beautiful Disaster provide rare insight into what people with extraordinary gifts see, think, feel and do; pose questions about the potential to tap into previously undetected abilities and spotlight the ‘silent epidemic’ of head trauma. His experiences also make vivid some the challenges faced by those living with autism and other neurological disorders and hint at the possibility we all have more in common than we think. Readers enchanted by autistic savant, Daniel Tammet’s eloquent Born On A Blue Day, will welcome another multi-layered, first person account of what is to live with a remarkable condition. Uniquely, having spent his life as a “neurotypical” Amato’s tale relates the before and after of ‘the gift’; his voice at times resonating with incredulity at what has happened and what the eventual cost may be.