Astrobiologist Theo Byrne has been raising his neurodivergent nine-year-old son Robin by himself ever since his wife Alyssa died when Robin was seven. Despite Robin's escalating behavioral problems, Theo doesn't want to put him on psychiatric drugs. When social services threaten to get involved, Theo signs Robin up for experimental decoded neurofeedback sessions, in which he tries to match his own neural activity to other people's recorded patterns, in order to improve his emotional control.
Bewilderment contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The book seems to be set a few years into the future. Global Warming causes devastating natural disasters and outbreaks of various diseases. Meanwhile, civil liberties have been greatly curtailed - it's now illegal to insult the president, and everyone is required to carry either a visa or proof of citizenship at all times.
- Affectionate Nickname: Robin asks Theo what he used to call Alyssa. Theo lists "Aly," "Ally," "Miss Lissy," and "Mom."
- Amicable Exes: Alyssa was on good terms with all her exes, including Martin Currier, the researcher who runs Robin's neurofeedback sessions. It made Theo jealous, even though he knew she'd never cheat.
- Bully Magnet: Robin is harassed by his classmates, causing many of his violent outbursts. After he starts the neurofeedback sessions, he becomes so calm that he develops the opposite problem and completely stops standing up for himself.
- Character Tics: Robin pinwheels his arms when he can't find words and rubs the cleft of his chin when he's thinking hard.
- Homeschooled Kids: The summer before fourth grade, Robin talks Theo into homeschooling him. Thanks to Robin's enhanced focus from the neurofeedback, he has no trouble with the work. He even wants to study on weekends. When he's finished with his work, Theo gives him "treasure hunts" like filling in outlines of countries with drawings of the local wildlife. When Theo can't get babysitters, he takes Robin to campus with him and sets him up in the library. However, his career suffers - he stops publishing papers and cancels conference appearances, and his collaborator, Carl Stryker, dissolves their partnership. After the neurofeedback sessions stop, Robin loses the ability to focus on his work.
- Lost Pet Grievance: When the Byrnes' dog, Chester, died a few months after Alyssa, Robin's rages became so bad that Theo actually let the doctors medicate him for a while.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Robin becomes a fan of Inga Alder, an autistic teenage climate activist who's a clear stand-in for Greta Thunberg.
- No Medication for Me: Theo thinks kids are over-diagnosed and over-medicated. He's so opposed to the idea of letting Robin take psychiatric medication that he's more comfortable with experimental neurofeedback.
- Punch a Wall: Once Theo accidentally threw away one of Robin's trading cards. He punched his bedroom door so hard he fractured two bones in his hand.
- Self-Harm: Robin sees a video of cows with bovine viral encephalopathy staggering into each other and bellowing in confusion. He's so upset by it that he starts slamming his head into his bedroom wall.
- Trumplica: The unnamed president is an uneducated, science-hating xenophobe who spends billions on border patrols and harassment of immigrants while cutting funding to everything else, especially anything related to astronomy or the environment. When Robin becomes an internet celebrity, the president has neurofeedback declared unethical so Robin won't be able to motivate people to vote against him. When he loses the election, he alleges voter fraud, and unlike the real Trump, he succeeds in getting a new election, which he wins. He's also fond of writing capslocked social media posts with multiple exclamation marks per sentence.
