John Elder Robison is an Aspergian and proud of it. I didn’t really know what that meant before meeting him. I suspected, however, that it couldn’t be good. After all, Asperger’s is a form of autism. But I had also read his memoir, Look Me in the Eye, which, ultimately, is a tale of triumph. He is not so much the Ugly Duckling as the Misfit Duckling.

John didn’t know why he was so odd until he was 40. Now he’s 50 and says he has taught himself to be normal. But how normal is that? That is the curiosity-killed-the-cat question that I’ve gone all the way to Massachusetts to answer. He insists on picking me up at the airport and, even more unusually, asks what car I would prefer. He loves machines (it’s an Aspergian thing) and cars, particularly British ones. Did I want a Rolls, a Land Rover, Mini or Jag? It all seems a little intense. Mondeos are not on the list.

But, then, at the security barrier, I can’t find him. Minutes tick by. Suddenly I see a big guy pacing round the end of the luggage carousel. His head is down and moving back and forth, clumsy like a bear. I recognise him from his website and run up in full effusive greeting mode. He glances up and around me, his blue eyes circling like searchlights but never quite landing on mine. “So your plane was early, huh?” he says, his voice even and slow and a little robotic.

That is his version of a handshake. I notice, not for the last time, that being Aspergian cuts through a lot of the bullshit.

On the road (the car is a BMW because the Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible can’t be left in the car park), he talks almost non-stop as we drive through the bucolic hills of western Massachusetts towards the small college town of Amherst.

At one point, he interrupts himself to announce: “And, look, I’m normal now! I even dress normally!”

I don’t know what to say. Is it a joke? Later I ask him and he denies it. At the time I glance at his clothes (classic American casual, chinos and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt). Very normal, but not, perhaps, normal to say so.

The next morning we go for brunch, stoking up for our day in which I ask him to take me on a kind of John Robison “This is Your Life” tour. Of course, in this case, it is a trip around the eighth circle of hell. Still, we need to fortify ourselves for what lies ahead. While we eat, I ask him about the book and how it came to be published. He says that there was a lot of interest in his manuscript and he went to New York to interview ten publishers.

“You went to New York to interview publishers?” I ask, choking on my ice tea.

“Yes, it seemed the only logical way to pick one,” he notes.

Logical, perhaps, but also unheard of. Most first-time authors are lucky to get the phone slammed down on them.

I have already learned that it is an Aspergian trait to be straightforward. I asked him several difficult questions of fact that he answered directly. So, I say idly, avoiding eye contact myself now, how much was the advance then?

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