Brian Trapp grew up with his twin brother Danny, who had a disability. Growing up, Danny would remind Brian that he was six minutes older. “He never let me forget it,” Trapp says. Every birthday, Danny liked to count to 10:04, and when 10:10 came, Trapp would finally get to say that he was the same age as his brother. 

“I think a lot of stories about disability may be tragic, sentimental, but this is a comedy,” says Trapp, the author of the Range of Motion. 

Range of Motion is fiction, although Trapp set up the characters similar to his own family. Trapp says that Sal, the twin brother in the book, and Trapp’s own brother, Danny, communicate the same way, both saying “ehh” for yes and “ehh ehh” for no. They also find creative ways to express themselves, such as through gestures, tone and more, which Trapp grew to understand over the years.

 Range of Motion published Oct. 16, and Trapp has events at University of Oregon Knight Library and Tsunami Books.

Why is this book written as fiction? In fiction, Trapp says, “you can pretend to be someone else, but you can also be in someone else’s consciousness.” He says the truth can show the weight of what happens, and fiction can add dynamism to it.

One incident that he experienced in Trapp’s teenage years inspired him to write a book about people with and around disabilities. He volunteered at a camp run by Camp Cheerful, an Ohio-based nonprofit organization with a mission to empower children and adults with disabilities through programs. “It was a beautiful experience and also counter-cultural,” Trapp says. 

During the camp, Trapp assisted youth with disabilities with basic care, including helping them move their bodies and change diapers. Trapp was already accustomed to that assistance, having grown up with Danny, who had those needs. 

One day at a pool party, one of the campers left the camp without telling anyone and was found later, unhurt, going down the road in his power wheelchair. “It was a traumatic experience,” Trapp says, leading him to think of why the camper did that. 

Trapp started writing a story about 20 years ago. He was curious at first why the camper wanted to leave the camp. He also observed and experienced the challenges that families with people with disabilities go through. He says that there is a care crisis in the U.S., in which his parents had to send his brother Danny to a care home because they were unable to care for him at home. “Unfortunately, I started the book 20 years ago, and the situation has not gotten much better,” Trapp says.

Even with the challenges, Trapp’s family enjoyed having Danny at home. One of Trapp’s friends, who spent some time at Trapp’s family’s house, had a special needs child, and told Trapp, “Your house was not a house of sadness… it was a house of joy.”

Danny died in 2011 at the age of 28. 

Brian Trapp will host a book event at 4:30 pm Wednesday, Oct. 29, at University of Oregon Knight Library, 1501 Kincaid Street. He will give a talk in conversation with Melissa Hart at 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 13, at Tsunami Bookstore, 2585 Willamette Street. Range of Motion can be purchased at BrianTrappWriter.com.