About Spelling Love with an X
Clare Dunsford is the mother of a twenty-one-year-old son with Fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited cause of mental retardation. Spelling Love with an X is the first literary memoir about living with Fragile X, which affects the lives of over a million people in the U.S., including those with the full mutation, their families, and treatment professionals.
When J.P. was first diagnosed, at age seven, Dunsford received the devastating news that she and three of her four siblings all carry the Fragile X premutation and had therefore unknowingly passed on the full mutation to several of their children. An English professor by training, Dunsford draws on classic poetry to explore her new identity as a genetically “flawed” individual and reflect on her life with J.P., a colorful young man with great verbal dexterity and a lovable cheeky streak. “My instinct to find order and consolation in literature,” she writes, “lends a distinct voice to the story of my family’s DNA.” Brimming with warmth and intelligence, Spelling Love with an X shares the disarming insights of a compassionate scholar on motherhood, literature, and genetic inheritance.
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What is Fragile X?
Fragile X is the most common cause of inherited mental impairment. This impairment can range from learning disabilities to more severe cognitive or intellectual disabilities (sometimes referred to as mental retardation). Symptoms also can include characteristic physical and behavioral features, anxiety, and delays in speech and language development. Fragile X syndrome is also the most common known cause of autism or "autistic-like" behaviors.
For more information on the cause of Fragile X and the intriguing pattern of inheritance of the FMR1gene, go to www.nfxf.org and www.fraxa.org .
Cover photo credit: Stephen Pfohl