Judith Newman’s twins, Gus and Henry, were born prematurely, after a difficult pregnancy. In the hospital, shortly after giving birth, Newman was visited by a friend, the editor of a parenting magazine. “She told me she knew immediately that Henry was extremely intelligent. She said nothing about Gus.”
When Gus reached 10 months, Newman began to acknowledge that something might be wrong. At a year and a half, he was more interested in acquiring the language of machines than of people. Newman joked to a friend, “I guess it’s good he’s a city child. Soon he’ll be doing car alarms, cars backfiring, buses emitting exhaust, drive-by shootings.