'Eloquent as a love song, rich as the most generous, finely tempered philosophy, The Boy in the Moon asks some profound questions. What makes us human? What connects us to the most impaired members of our community? Who benefits more, the caretaker or the cared-for? The answer to all these questions lies in the wonderfully realized — poignant, dignified, funny — portrait of Walker, whom Ian Brown calls "my teacher, my sweet, sweet, lost and broken boy." It's hard to imagine a reader who won't also learn important things from Walker: this is a book that expands the mind and heart, and a joy to read.'

'There's poignancy on every page of this beautifully articulated memoir about life with Walker Brown.'

' ... the unmistakably real humanity and honesty of Brown's description of this life are something valuable.'

'If you read to get a sense of how other people experience being alive, The Boy in the Moon is the real thing: an intimate, profoundly eloquent, soul-wrenching memoir. In seeking to understand what goes on in his disabled son Walker's mind, Ian Brown allows us into his own. By turns lyrical, quirky, spare, unsparing, confessional, journalistic, irreverent, grim, angry, and sometimes hilarious, Brown writes out his thoughts, feelings and experiences as father, son, husband and ambivalent visitor to the international community of the "disabled". An extraordinary book, this is literature that opens up new emotional and psychological terrain.'

'I read about a third of The Boy in the Moon through tears, and the other two-thirds brimming with the admiration that comes when a writer truly nails it. Ian Brown is a gifted prose stylist of the Deceptively Simple school, and his talent is intimately well-matched to the subject of his and his family's complicated love for their son and brother (and existential mirror) Walker. Read it and weep — but also reflect and engage and, finally, cheer.'