Inside upward bound: a novel unveils the dignity of care

Woody Brown’s debut novel, Upward Bound, isn’t a polemic against assisted living facilities. It’s a quiet, deeply affecting portrait of a place most of us would rather not contemplate – a suburban Los Angeles daycare center for adults with disabilities, where the walls are “poop-colored” and the swimming pool beckons with a melancholic silence. Brown, a first-of-his-kind non-speaking autistic graduate of UCLA and Columbia University, doesn’t offer recriminations; he offers a window into a world often overlooked and misunderstood, revealing a surprising tenderness amidst the institutional gray.

A world seen through different eyes

The narrative, structured with refreshing fluidity, shifts between first-person accounts from Walter, Brown’s alter ego, and third-person perspectives of staff and fellow clients. Walter, communicating primarily through echoes of Thomas the Tank Engine and Toy Story 3 – a poignant approximation of speech – grapples with aspirations of becoming a writer while navigating the daily routines of Upward Bound. The book resists easy categorization. It doesn’t present simplistic narratives of victimhood or heroism; instead, it illuminates the complex tapestry of human experience within a confined space. The shifting perspectives are not merely a stylistic flourish; they dismantle the pervasive misconception that autistic individuals lack empathy.

Consider Jorge, a man deemed