Interesting, but Simplistic

La Différence Invisible is a graphic novel about a young French woman called Marguerite who experiences extreme social difficulties in her daily life and turns out to have Asperger’s Syndrome.

My interest was piqued by a free preview of the entire first chapter on a French bande dessinée website, but unfortunately it was the best part of the story. Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautiful book and the draughtsmanship is great, but the storytelling leaves a lot to be desired.

The bulk of the tale loops with minor variations: The protagonist rolls out of bed and goes to work where she suffers anguish and torment from her hideous colleagues. After work she heads for a party with her dense boyfriend and faces more upset from him and his horrible friends. Upon waking the next morning she goes to work again. It’s pretty much a re-run of the day before with bonus torment from her boss. On the way home, she visits her sister: a woman she has known her entire life, but just like her daft boyfriend doesn’t seem to know her at all. Marguerite returns home, goes to bed and, well… you get the picture.

Not to ruin the plot, but there’s no escaping that Marguerite is an Asperger’s cliché traversing a world of sociopaths. Whereas Asperger’s sufferers in real-life have varying symptoms affecting them to various degrees, Marguerite’s symptoms all have the volume dialled up to max. The neurotypicals of the world she inhabits, on the other hand, are unanimously unfeeling, uncaring, horrible people. You might say that their inability to empathise with those around them means they aren’t actually neurotypical at all.

After reading the first chapter I was hoping for a BD in the same educational vain as Fabrice Neaud’s Alex et la vie d’après (a story about a young man who is diagnosed with HIV), but it doesn’t compare at all. Neaud’s story is a compelling read for anyone past their teenage years (it was controversially distributed to schools in Belgium), it has a convincing protagonist and is very educational. By contrast, La Différence Invisible is overly-simplistic and the most educational parts are not the story but the preface and the addendum.

Writing this review fills me with guilt because one of the authors is directly affected by Asperger’s. She is genuinely trying to do good—to make a visible difference—and we could certainly do with more awareness-raising books of this kind. It does fall a little bit short of expected standards though.