That “Upward Bound” made the NYT bestseller list reveals how gullible the public is, actually believing that profoundly autistic Woody Brown wrote it.
The novel was released in March 2026 and quickly got on the New York Times bestseller list.
This was certainly fueled by mom Mary Brown’s and Woody’s guest spot on “The Today Show,” along with a big article about the young man that appeared in the New York Times as well as other major outlets.
There’s no evidence “Upward Bound” was penned by Woody Brown, who’s nonverbal, though has some limited speech (non-conversational, unable to express thoughts or ideas, primarily echoing lines heard from TV shows).
The only reason this novel would jump to bestseller status is that people actually believed that a severely (or profoundly?) autistic man composed it by tapping out letters on a plastic letter card over a two and a half year period – a claim by his mother.
However, it’s likely that some buyers of the book were able to see straight through the hoax, but out of curiosity, wanted to read it anyways – believing that Mary herself is the author. Mary Brown worked 20 years as a film story analyst and has a university English degree.
Mary has an answer for everything when skeptics question her.
For instance, to explain why Woody uses the rapid prompting method (RPM) of communication (pointing to letters on a plastic card that his mother holds before him) rather than a standard keyboard or even one that speaks what’s typed – she claims that when he was learning to read and write using a computer keyboard, he kept turning off the computer for refusal to learn.
He can’t turn off a plastic card, right? Well, Mary’s explanation fails because if someone doesn’t want to learn literacy, they’re going to shut down, regardless of the medium – be it a computer with a power button or a laminated letter board. Such a student would shoo the board away or turn their body away from it. Nice try, Mary.
What harm is there in this ruse?
I’ve read all the comments on this sham, and what has come up multiple times is that promoting this false authorship gives false hope to parents of nonspeaking or nonverbal kids with severe/profound autism.
It can drive the parents away from scientifically proven modes of communication, such as the AAC (augmented and alternative communication) iPad.
Desperate parents may get carried away with the excitement of believing their autistic child – for years silent – could now express their thoughts by pointing to letters on a card.
These parents may end up unknowingly submitting to the ideomotor effect.
Subtle ideomotor effects and facilitator cueing can unconsciously influence pointing or letter selection, creating the impression that the child is independently expressing complex thoughts.
This can lead to mistaken attribution of authorship, where the adult’s expectations or prompts are unintentionally guiding responses rather than the child’s autonomous communication process itself occurring.
Now, in Mary’s case, there’s powerful evidence that it’s a willful, conscious fraud rather than the ideomotor effect.
That evidence can clearly be observed when you slow down footage of Woody tapping at the letter board to one-quarter speed.
In fact, viewing at even normal speed with just a touch of scrutiny will reveal suspicious placement of his finger as Mary allegedly reads off what he’s supposedly spelling.
I have viewed the footage at 0.25 speed and collected the stream of letters that were pointed to: random gibberish including empty spaces. Here is that breakdown.
So many people didn’t think to view him at 0.25 speed. Do they not know this option exists on YouTube?
Or are they afraid of what they might subconsciously fear: That it’s all fake and thus their own severely autistic kid will never be able to express cogent thoughts?
Significant intellectual disability is typically present with nonverbal autism.
Parents may be able to accept that their child has Level 3 autism, but are not ready to accept that their son or daughter has the cognitive skills of a preschooler.
Mary’s fabrication would understandably bring great hope to them. Time would then be wasted pursuing RPM, which is actually a rebranded facilitated communication – which has been disproven in every single scientific investigation.
So since Mary’s stunt was deliberate, how did she pull it off? Well, it’s easy to see how mainstream media guns for likes and popularity from feel-good stories without fact checking.
But – how did Woody get his two college degrees? Yes, he has a degree in English and a master’s in creative writing.
His mother was at his side for every moment he was in the classroom. Here’s how Woody got his degrees.
Another question is why would his mother fake all of this?
An obvious answer jumps out: to get her writing on the NYT bestseller list.
If “Mary Brown” had been the byline of “Upward Bound,” do you think it would’ve gotten on the bestseller list? There’s no inspirational backstory for Mary. There’s no hook. No feel-good or beating the odds component to her life. Nobody would know about her book.
So why not create a fictitious element to her novel: claim that her severely autistic, nonverbal son wrote it!
Now THERE’S a media sensation!
However, there are other reasons that Mary could’ve created this clever, meticulously calculated stunt. Here are those additional reasons.
Certainly, there are autistic people with limited speech who independently use talking keyboard technology to type out their thoughts.
But when someone looks away while they’re quickly tapping the letter board; when while they’re tapping their eyes are trained on a preschool cartoon playing on an iPad; when the mom’s spoken translation contains far more letters than the number of taps – and several other highly suspicious factors – a person of sound mind can only identify it as a hoax.
