“Autism and grief acquire powerful and enigmatic reality as the reader turns the pages of A Proper Knowledge. To invoke one of its own metaphors, this novel is a refuge, not because it elides trauma or sorrow, but because it confronts them with gallant and unswerving clarity. A thousand things are noticed in this novel that you won’t have seen in fiction before. Don’t be fooled: for all the delicacy of its language this is a work of burning ferocity.”