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Upward Bound
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Upward Bound

By: Woody Brown
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Woody Brown’s vibrant and profoundly moving debut novel takes us to sun-bleached California, to a daycare centre for Los Angeles’s disabled community.
Among the clients and staff are Carlos, a charismatic aide who lost his mother as a boy, and Jorge, who is gentle, nonspeaking and prone to escape despite Carlos’s best efforts. Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy, pines for Ann, the lifeguard for the summer who feels out of her depth. Then there’s Dave, the centre’s director. He wanted to be an actor, but finds himself on a very different path.
At the heart of Upward Bound is Walter, a recent college student returning to the company of his peers after a family tragedy. Around him, a story unfolds of friendships forged, connections missed and the dreams – some new, others almost forgotten – that shape us. With his wit, empathy and astonishing gifts as a storyteller, Woody Brown immerses us in life as we have never experienced it before.

‘Wonderfully inspirational’ PAUL BEATTY
‘A complicated joy’ RODDY DOYLE
‘An unparalleled achievement, and a treasure’ RIVKA GALCHEN


© Woody Brown 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Coming of Age Family Life Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

Implosive and wonderfully inspirational. Upward Bound is acutely aware that be it indigo, autism, social class, or the gamma ray, everything and everyone is on the spectrum (PAUL BEATTY, Booker Prize winner of The Sellout)
Great characters, great pace, great story – reading Upward Bound is a complicated joy (RODDY DOYLE, Booker Prize winner of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha)
A luminous, eye-opening novel of human connection and hope that will stay with me for a long time. Woody Brown’s writing is deeply moving, and filled with so much heart (CECILE PIN, author of Wandering Souls)
Upward Bound is a book that feels as if it was painted by David Hockney. This is a story of friendship, dreams, and rich inner worlds. Woody Brown writes with a levity that cuts to the heart, in a language that brims with light (SEÁN HEWITT, author of Open, Heaven)
Upward Bound gives us the world from the perspective of someone rarely noticed or understood . . . Wondrous and distinctly brilliant (RIVKA GALCHEN, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch)
Reading Upward Bound reminded me why stories matter. Woody Brown’s writing carries an earned wisdom that remains with us long after the final page (JACQUELINE CROOKS, author of Fire Rush)
Highly original and utterly captivating, this heart-warming debut explores the lives that intersect in a daycare centre for Los Angeles’s disabled community with utmost empathy and wit (Waterstones)
Woody Brown has created a dazzling array of characters so real that I rooted for them, laughed and cried with them, and fell in love. Reading Upward Bound is deeply moving and wholly immersive, an experience that will change the way you look at the world. This novel is a gift, and I want to put it into the hands of every reader I know (ANGIE KIM, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls)
[A] groundbreaking debut novelist
Woody Brown accomplishes the seemingly impossible; he gives voice to a character with a sensibility both intelligent, ironic and loveable, who cannot himself speak (MONA SIMPSON, author of Anywhere but Here)
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