I Dream He Talks to Me: A Memoir of Learning How to Listen Audiobook

Grammy-nominated musician Allison Moorer's lyrical memoir, a testament to love and resilience through the lens of parenting her young son, John Henry, who has nonverbal autism.​

Dear John Henry: I can’t remember who it was that once said to me, “You’re one of those people with one of those lives,” but I do remember not being able to argue that urgent and important things have happened. They still do. Those happenings inevitably require a response from me, and the best one I can offer is to try to turn them and their effects into something I can present back and whisper, “Here’s what I’ve faced. Here’s what I’ve learned from it. You are not alone in how you feel. No matter what it is, it can be okay.” That’s the most honorable way I’ve figured out how to be of help or service in this world. More than any other person or event, you have taught me, and you have changed me just by being you. So I can’t imagine keeping to myself what a profound effect you’ve had on who I am. That is the most urgent and important of all the things that have happened. I figure you’re okay with people knowing that and understand that if I left you out of the stories I tell, I’d be leaving them mostly untold because you are, in fact, the constant co-author of my life now. My gratitude for you feels endless, but I want to thank you most of all for showing me that the best way to love a person is to let them be exactly who they are.

When Allison Moorer's son, John Henry, stopped talking just before his second birthday, she was devastated, even though Allison knew in her bones that something was shifting. In the  years since John Henry's diagnosis of nonverbal autism, Allison and John Henry have embarked on a powerful journey—filled with the heartbreak, adventure, confusion, and unending love that are the hallmarks of a quest for understanding.

 

In I Dream He Talks to Me, Allison details the temper tantrums and the moments of grace, the mundane expectations of a parent that turn into something extraordinary. The saying goes, "If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism"; no two stories are alike, and yet there are universal truths. With the same gorgeous prose that is a hallmark of  her first memoir, Blood, Allison shares her and John Henry's unique story while also creating a riveting narrative that will appeal to anyone who has questioned their own ability to parent. An exploration of resilience, compassion—both for ourselves and others—I Dream He Talks to Me is also a moving meditation on language: what words mean, what they don't, and ultimately how we truly communicate with and know those whom we love. 

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“Moorer’s candor and self-doubt are achingly honest and oftentimes funny, making this not a story of heartbreak but a celebration of life’s struggles and rewards. This is a parenting book worth reading twice."

— Publishers Weekly