My Own Boo Radley
My favorite book from early days was To Kill a Mockingbird. I imagined that I, like fellow tomboy character Scout Finch, would be brave and kind if I ever had a mysterious, reclusive neighbor like Boo Radley. The opportunity to be wise and understanding came in a different way than I expected.
By Lisa Louis
A Southern Gothic vibe courses through the veins of rural Upstate New York. Growing up outside the village limits of a post-Revolutionary War village of population 450 (the population has since gone down), when I wasn’t roaming fields, creeks and forests with my brothers and dog, I was reading books. The spirit of backcountry porches emanating from their pages and harboring the ghosts of buried dark deeds and unspoken trauma gripped my heart.
Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner struck deep chords when I read their work for school. It was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, though, that instantly became my favorite book and has remained so these many decades later. A copy of To Kill a Mockingbird was sitting on a bookshelf at home, and the iconic title drew me to read it years before any teacher assigned it for English class.
A tomboy myself, the only girl having to keep up with three brothers, I felt a kinship with Scout Finch, who also preferred wearing “britches” and seeking adventures outside with her brother Jem and neighborhood friend Dill to wearing dresses and staying neat and clean.
I also felt a similar wide-eyed innocence to Scout in observing the world around me. I was as entranced by the trinkets left in a hole in a tree for Scout and Jem by the mysterious recluse on the street, Boo Radley, as Scout and Jem were.
Boo (actually named Arthur) was given his nickname for the spooky, dark reputation neighbors cultivated for him to fill in the vacuum created by his isolation, closed away in the rundown Radley house. There was a story about him years ago sitting in his living room clipping papers for a project. He nonchalantly stabbed a family member in the leg with the scissors as they walked by, and then went back to clipping papers as if nothing had happened.
The fact that Boo was ultimately kept at home rather than in an institution, and was hidden out of sight, made him a mysterious shadow figure and an all the more fascinating subject about which boogeyman stories were created.
Yet Boo turned out to be a hero in To Kill a Mockingbird. He was a silent observer who sensed the true level of danger to Scout and Jem posed by an angry townsman embroiled in a sordid court case in which Scout’s father, lawyer Atticus Finch, was arguing.
Walking home from a school pageant through a wooded trail at night, the angry man attacked Scout and Jem. After the fright and confusion of the attack, the children discovered that their attacker had been thwarted by their mysterious neighbor Boo.
Scout sees Boo as a real person for the first time. She takes Boo by the hand to see Jem asleep in bed, reassuring Boo that Jem will recover from his injuries. Scout then walks Boo back to his house, standing on his porch to say goodbye, and feels she can see the world from Boo’s perspective.
She sees that a person who seems very different—and therefore scary—may be dealing with challenges that separate them from everyday society. She learns the meaning of her father’s words, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”
Reading about Scout’s open heart and courage inspired me. I aspired to be a person who would be open-minded and understanding enough not to prejudge a person who was isolated and different from others, even a Boo Radley whose absence from public view generated scary stories.
A couple of decades after first reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I became a mother. Things went well enough with our first son, but as my second son reached toddlerhood, the fact that he didn’t speak intelligibly, rarely made eye contact, and didn’t interact with people or the world the way others did eventually led to an autism diagnosis.
My son’s diagnosis was not like that of kids who can speak and do schoolwork and function fairly independently but have trouble making friends and understanding social cues. Sean was the kid who couldn’t speak to save himself, was overwhelmed by the slightest sensory input, and dealt with frustration by shutting down or lashing out—head butting (others), head banging (the wall, furniture or floor), or pinching and biting (himself and others).
Those unaccustomed to interacting with a profoundly autistic person like Sean who has difficulty with self-regulation can find it alarming. As a kid, sweet, loving moments and highlights when Sean was able to communicate a bit were countered by long silences when he could not look at anyone, was in a spaced-out haze, and was unresponsive to the level of appearing to be deaf. On occasion he had sudden, unpredictable behavior that could hurt himself or people around him.
Sean’s unpredictable behavior, shutdowns and meltdowns became extremely difficult to gauge as he rolled into the early teen years. His struggles largely closed him away from the world and isolated the rest of our family with him.
Neighbors observed us going in and out of the house, sometimes going to enormous lengths to coax Sean—our shadowy family member who did not act like “normal” people—out in the world. It was a sharp contrast to our earlier days with just our “typically developing” older son who happily interacted with people and his surroundings.
In our post-To Kill a Mockingbird society, rather than treating Sean like a scary boogeyman, neighbors offered encouragement when we struggled to get him onto a school bus, into the car, or up the front stairs into the house.
We were even more of a spectacle in public places. Going into hide-at-home-Boo-Radley mode almost became a comfort zone, though it was also dispiriting and heartbreaking. All of our lives were severely restricted.
Modern society and school systems have come to understand conditions like autism so much better than would have been the case in the era in which Harper Lee described Boo Radley and his family. With many years of hard work and determination, Sean and our family have been able to get back into the outside world, going on hikes and outings every day that Sean is not at his day program for adults with disabilities.
The pandemic shutdown starting in March of 2020 threw us a huge curveball. We had worked so hard for so many years to get Sean out in the world, and there we were shut away in the house again. In those early days of the shutdown, even walking in a public park was discouraged.
One morning I convinced Sean to come sit on the bench on our front porch for some fresh air.
“Let’s look at some books, Seanie,” I said. “Just for a few minutes.”
I could see frustration and confusion at the change in his routine building up. Why weren’t we getting him ready to go to his program? Why weren’t we going for a hike somewhere? Pushing him to spend time out on the porch was leading to a meltdown.
He stood up and turned to face the big porch window. I saw telltale motions indicating the start of a powerful head-banging episode, something I hadn’t seen in years. Our next-door neighbor could see us from her window.
She saw me, a loving mom trying to help her autistic son to spend time outside on the porch, only to then see Sean stand up and aim to bang his head on the window. I managed to stop him midway before he revved up enough force to hit the window with his head, which could have meant broken glass and injury.
After blocking the head bang, I calmly but firmly (though my heart was in a scrambled flutter) redirected his energy and guided him back into the house. There went our attempt for outdoor time on the porch.
As I closed the door behind me, a realization flashed in my head. I was not living my dream of being the understanding neighbor like Scout Finch. I was the Boo Radley parent protecting my son at home. Luckily, when some restrictions lifted, we got Sean back outdoors for walks for 365 days in a row while his program was closed.
Fortunately, the hard work put in by families like ours, and by many support services—from schools to social workers to therapists and adult day programs—have helped people like my son Sean avoid being completely shut away from society.
It is still a challenge to navigate life, but we will never give up on helping Sean find his way in a world he isn’t wired for. Thanks to all the people who see the potential Boo Radleys of the world as fellow human beings who deserve compassion.
“My Own Boo Radley” ©2025. Lisa Louis and The Renaissance Garden Guy
Readers can check out Lisa Louis’ website HikingAutism.com to enjoy the Insights blog posts for weekly uplifting messages, look at the ever-growing list of Hikes to see the over 200 hike descriptions, and check out the photo galleries under the hikes which adds up to well over 2,000 nature photos. Lisa and her family lead other special needs families on monthly hikes in the San Francisco Bay Area in collaboration with the Autism Society, and she is currently editing the manuscript for her book Just Get to the Trailhead: An Autism Journey, which depicts her son’s transformation from being trapped at home by autism-related challenges to hiking rugged mountain trails. Readers can find Lisa at facebook.com/HikingAutism, twitter.com/HikingAutism, instagram.com/lisalouis777, and HikingAutism.bsky.social
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Lisa, every time I read your work I’m made aware of those around me who are different from me. Your determination and persistence to create a world where Sean can find peace gives hope to parents who also have children with autism.
Thank you so much for this comment, Kevin. It makes me feel that my work helps others, if only in some small way!
Lisa’s life experiences and her ability to make us better understand the Boo character in To Kill a Mockingbird is refreshing. It is better to integrate all people with disabilities into society as much as possible.
Thank you for reading the piece, Rick, and for your insightful comments!
This was a powerful and moving piece, Lisa. Thank you so much for sharing these very personal thoughts and experiences with us.
Thank you so much for reading the piece, Ann. It is a story I’ve thought about writing for many years, and am so glad to finally have a place to share it!
Thank you for this amazing piece.
I also have Autism.
Blessings.
Thank you for reading the story, Ann. I imagine that your personal experience is an example of how we see the world from different perspectives from others, depending on our individual circumstances. My son Sean is not able to articulate these things for himself, and I am always grateful to hear from others on the spectrum who are able to share insights!
I am 77, Lisa. And believe me – Life just gets more and more interesting each day.
There are good days – and there are Not So Good days. I follow a Low Oxalate Diet – which helps a lot. And to get over the stimming and the stress of trying to function in the World – I take GABA daily.
Blessings to you and your son.
Thanks for the diet and supplement tips, Ann. We also found that avoiding certain foods and adding certain vitamins and supplements helped our son tremendously. Thank you also for sharing wisdom from your 77 years!
Blessings to you. I recommend a woman named Susan Owens to help with your son. She is totally amazing and has helped many hundreds of parents with autism issues.
Thank you for the recommendation, Ann! This reply may appear above your previous one, but I’ll look up Susan Owens, thank you!