A syndrome is, according to Merriam Webster, “a group of signs or symptoms that together are characteristic of a particular abnormality or condition.” People with syndromes tend to be outlanders to society to a greater or lesser degree depending on the syndrome and its severity. But, don’t people who stand outside the norm interest us?
In The Echo Maker, Richard Powers’ main character, Karin, rushes to her brother’s side after he suffers a traumatic head injury, only to find he has Capgras syndrome, the delusion that people around one are imposters. Karen reaches out to a psychiatrist and the rest… is the story.
Why can some characters cope in the face of syndromes while others struggle? In The Condition, Jennifer Haigh writes of a family whose daughter has Turner’s syndrome. She will never go through puberty and become, physically, an adult. Emphasis is on the condition’s effect on the victim, but just as much on her family. The theme of a syndrome’s effect on family is especially poignant in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, in which Mark Haddon uses first person point of view for his autistic main character.
Phyllis Quatman’s Courthouse Cowboys is a legal thriller based on a real case in which the defense attorney defends a young man who suffers from Kleinfelter’s syndrome. Then there’s the wonderful Lionel Essrog of Motherless Brooklyn. Jonathon Letham has created a tragicomic private eye suffering from the compulsive repetitions that accompany Tourette’s syndrome.
These authors all give us insider information about medical conditions, but they also teach us how hard life is for some people, and how they meet their outlandish challenges. As always, fiction expands our knowledge, but even more, it it’s done right, it expands our compassion.