Woody Brown's 'Upward Bound' Offers Vital Insight into Autism and Adult Care
Woody Brown's extraordinary debut novel Upward Bound provides a garrulous and charming story of a young man trapped in a dismal adult daycare center for disabled adults in the Los Angeles suburbs. The book offers a vital insider's perspective from Brown, a non-speaking autistic author who has swerved the hell of adult care to pursue a professional writing career.
A Jailbreak Story of Sorts
Upward Bound serves as a dumping ground for the city's disabled community, with "poop-coloured" walls and a small swimming pool out back. The name on the sign is cruelly misleading—this facility functions as a pen to hold people who have aged out of school. Any inmate who manages to clamber free has beaten the odds and might be viewed as a small miracle.
Brown, the first non-speaking autistic graduate of UCLA and a 2024 alumnus of Columbia University's writing program, looks back not with anger but with compassion and grace. His triumphant first novel suggests that practically everyone at Upward Bound has been falsely imprisoned, making the book a literary equivalent of sending the ladder back down.
Walter's Struggle to Communicate
The tale's autistic main character Walter—presumably Brown's alter ego—explains: "I am the echolalic kid," lifting lines from Thomas the Tank Engine and Toy Story 3 as an approximation of speech. Despite scoring straight As at community college and dreaming of becoming a writer, Walter's prospects are dim because "the bottom line is being able to communicate." Non-speakers rarely land even menial work.
Marooned at Upward Bound, Walter finds himself parked next to people he's known half his life but has never spoken to. He thinks he loves Emma, a fellow client, and that she might love him back. Yet when they stand side by side in the rec room, they might be 100 miles apart, communing on a different plane altogether.
Multiple Perspectives and Empathy
It's tempting to file Brown's illuminating insider account alongside other neurodivergent artists' work, but Upward Bound emphasizes the differences among its characters—the range of conditions and presentations that complicate this community of outcasts. No one person is alike, so the book gives us multiple viewpoints, occasionally of the same scene.
The lively criss-crossing structure weaves from first person to third, and from Walter through staff and clients, casually exploding the lie that autistic people lack empathy. There are no monsters or villains inside Upward Bound—Jorge, the hulking problem case, only wants more time with his comfort toy, while Dave, the stressed-out manager, is stressed for good reason.
Beyond the Center's Walls
At one point, the perspective hops out of the center altogether to frame the thoughts of Avery, a bored Target checkout girl who observes the inmates' unhurried comings and goings every Friday. "The weird group slowly moves into the store," she reports. "There are 10 people and two handlers. People. Of course they're people. It's just that they look fuzzy around the edges."
Brown's prose draws connections and pulls his figures into focus. This tolerant spirit extends to the daycare center itself, which Walter calls "an insane asylum" and "a dead-end way-station." Yet for at least one staff member, Carlos—a tattooed former tearaway—the place becomes a lifeline where he finds purpose and passion as a carer.
A Flawed but Powerful Debut
As for Brown, his story arc as a novelist is just getting started with this vertiginous lift-off. His book is flawed in the way most good first novels are—it overexplains, provides too much exposition and information. This is a common failing in debut authors, doubly so for one who has spent his whole life off the page trying to make himself understood.
Yet Upward Bound remains funny, moving, and ringing with life—a book that embraces the difficulty and contradictions of its subject matter. It's the garrulous, charming story of a young man who can't speak, and an inclusive, friendly guide to the overlooked and isolated. One obvious measure of great fiction is its ability to transport you to a whole other world. Sometimes that world contains spacemen and dragons. Sometimes it's one that's right under your nose.
