Book Review

Upward Bound

by Woody Brown (Jonathan Cape, 2026)

It is no surprise that this is such an insightful book. The author Woody Brown has lived or sat alongside most of what he writes about here, with such eloquence and feeling. He is the first nonspeaking autistic graduate of UCLA, where he received top writing honours in English, and this is his first novel, drawing compellingly on his own experiences and empathic perceptions.

Upward Bound is the ironically named tedious day centre where Walter, alter ego of Woody, is obliged to spend his days when his mother falls on hard times and can’t dedicate the hours she used willingly to spend, enabling him to communicate and write via a letter board. “As much as I wish I could just type my thoughts independently, that’s not how it works for most nonspeaking spellers,” Walter explains. “Our brains have trouble getting all the motor planning lined up to perform the complex actions involved in typed communication.” But there is no one to do that for him at the centre. And so, along with the many others there who cannot communicate via speech for a variety of reasons, he tends to be under-estimated and dismissed as mentally retarded.

He has no way to show how smart he is. When huge Jorge, another of the non-speaking ‘inmates’, as Walter thinks of them all, manages to sneak out of the centre, putting himself at risk, Walter cannot point to the direction he took nor form anything other than echolalic words in his attempts to be of assistance. After Jorge is safely brought back, Dave, the head of the centre, blusters that Jorge should have let someone know he needed a time-out. “That ridiculous statement hovered in the air like a stinky fart,” observes Walter. It totally encapsulates Dave’s inability to ‘get’ the people he is overseeing.

We are taken inside of the worlds of different characters. There is Tom, the strikingly handsome young man completely disabled by severe cerebral palsy, who cannot move or speak, feels apologetic for his very existence and has a vivid, tragic inner world. He is captivated by the attentions of beautiful young Ann, a student doing a summer placement, and, through their encounters, the limitations of even those who are trying their best to help are painfully revealed.

The author has understanding for everyone – even Dave. Dave insists on meaningless activities for the ‘inmates’, including a meaningless weekly trip to Target supermarket, where no one is allowed to buy anything, and has ridiculously high expectations of them, when he arranges a concert for them to put on. “It occurred to me,” comments Walter, “that Dave’s rigid rule system was his disability”. His priorities are all wrong because he is so desperate for validation himself.

As well as painting vivid portraits of ‘inmates’, including wordless Emma, whom Walter has feelings for and can only imagine that they are communicated, we learn the back stories of staff members, most particularly the cool, caring Carlos, who is central to the novel. He develops a special relationship with bear-like Jorge. At first, he had feared that this giant of a man would have violent explosions; then, as the author tells us in a succinctly expressed observation, “when he ventured to peer under the heavy lids, he saw that Jorge was not a powder keg but a pillow”. Yet even saint-like Carlos suffers from common human failings, such as the need, initially, to feel special to Jorge, experiencing bruising of his pride when he was sometimes ignored.

Alongside all this are Walter’s memories and experiences from outside the limited day centre world. Once his mom had a group of autism friends visit for a ‘film night’ and Walter had a dreadful meltdown, which included thrusting his arm through a glass window: “The adults, looking like a den of meerkats, turned their heads in unison to gaze at me mildly, no shock or panic.” They had all been there, with their own children.

This is a funny, moving, instructive, brilliantly told story, which builds to an unexpected climax. It is a powerful debut by a very talented writer.

Reviewed by Denise Winn