Marcelo in the Real World

In Francisco X. Stork’s eloquent and often surprising coming-of-age novel, 17-year-old Marcelo Sandoval, who has Asperger’s syndrome, is supposed to be spending the summer caring for nine ponies at his special-needs school. Instead, his unsympathetic lawyer father wants him to work in the mailroom of his law firm and experience “the real world.” The father…