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| | Publications | | The Boy In The Moon | | A Father's Search for His Disabled Son | | Ian Brown | | Today, we are on Earth, in a land of shadows and sometimes of darkness, but one thing we know : our hearts, so often wounded, are beautiful. They are made for love. —Jean Vanier, in a letter to Ian Brown |  Ian Brown’s son, Walker, was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps a 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.
Ian Brown first wrote about his son in a series for the Globe and Mail, which drew an unprecedented reader response. But the Globe series only scratched the surface of what Brown needed to know and needed to say about his son. As her writes: “What is the value of a life like his—a life lived in the twilight, and often in pain? What is the cost of his life to those around him?... Sometimes watching Walker 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 are hard-won and haunting. 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 travels the continent to speak to gene scientists and to meet other children with the syndrome, shocked every time by their physical resemblance to his son. He tries to imagine a future for an adult Walker, and as a result travels to L’Arche, the community Jena Vanier founded in France, to speak with Vanier and to see for himself a place where disabled adults are not shunted onto the sidelines but embraced by “normal” others. He meets with neurologists to peer at scans of Walker’s brain, searching for causes and not really finding them: on that front, Walker remains a mystery.
Brown never shies away from the humour or the intense pathos of life with Walker. With the tender imagination and stark honesty Brown brings to the writing, the quality that infuses his book is 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.
Also of interest
The Vanier Letters: Public correspondance between Jean Vanier and Ian Brown
Click here to access this inspiring set of exchanges | $21.00*
To order THE BOY IN THE MOON
or other books and media viewed on this website please contact :
Daybreak Books & Media
11339 Yonge St., Richmond Hill, ON L4S 1L1
Tel: 905-884-3454 ext. 234
Toll-free: 1-800-853-1412
Fax: 905-884-0763
E-mail: pubs@larchedaybreak.com
  
Daybreak Books & Media is an outreach ministry of the the L'Arche Daybreak community
All sales proceeds help support the work of L'Arche
* Prices are in Canadian dollars and subject to change |
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