Plot Summary of Eben

 Young Englishman Eben John Watt is summoned in 1798 to return to his home near the Yorkshire Dales, after being released as a farm laborer in the Midlands, a four-day journey to the south.  At age twelve, Eben had lost his coal-miner father; and to ease the financial burdens of the family, his uncle had secured a position for him with an aging tenant farmer who trained Eben to plow, care for horses and sheep, and repair outbuildings and fences in return for room and board and a modest wage. Five years later, when Eben’s employment is no longer needed, he returns home and strives to ease back into day to day life with his mother Mary, younger sister Tess, and two aunts, who sorely need his help to maintain their garden and homestead. 

Eben’s memories of home and family have sustained him, yet it becomes evident that he has struggles which neither he nor his family fully comprehend. Could Eben’s challenges be due to the abuses of his farm master? Yet there are hints of difficulties Eben faced before he was sent away. Through incremental access to his thoughts and behaviors, the reader comes to realize that Eben has autism, a disability which did not have a name or a definition in 1798. Rather than those closest to him perceiving him as ‘cursed,’ ‘possessed,’ or ‘the village idiot,’ they do their best to understand how to help him through ever-escalating difficulties. The story culminates in the power of redemptive love.