The Boy In The Moon: A Father’s Search For His Disabled Son

Winner of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction in Canada.

Ian Brown’s son, Walker, was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps one hundred people around the world live with it. At twelve, Walker is still in diapers: he is globally delayed, he can’t speak, and he has to wear cuffs on both his arms so that he won’t constantly hit himself. Yet those details don’t capture him. Despite the turmoil and pain of his life, Walker still delivers to the world moments of joy so intense they seem supernatural. ‘Sometimes watching Walker,’ Brown writes, ‘is like looking at the moon: you see the face of the man in the moon, yet you know there’s actually no man there. But if Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?’

The answers to these questions are hard-won and haunting. As Brown describes the life Walker lives and the way he and his family help him live it, first at home, and later in a special group house for disabled children, he never shies away from the humour or the intense pathos of life with his son.

With a tender imagination and stark honesty, Brown infuses The Boy in the Moon with the quality of love: for this amazing boy, for his family, and for life. As much as this book is about one frail boy and the tiny constellation of people who surround him, it is also about all of us who try so hard to be parents worthy of our children.