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David Levithan. Boy Meets Boy.
Knopf, 2003 [208p]
Library ed. ISBN 0-375-92400-0 $17.99
Trade ed. ISBN 0-375-82400-6 $15.95
Gr. 7-12
Ah, love, sweet love. It comes to tenth-grader Paul on an ordinary bookstore
outing with friends when, in the Self-Help section, he meets the boy of his
dreams: “I am aware of my breathing. I am aware of my heartbeat. I am aware
that my shirt is half untucked. . . . There’s no way that Self-Help can
help me now.” Noah, new to town and Paul’s school, reciprocates the
interest, and the two embark on the exciting beginnings of an idyllic relationship.
In fact, in the tender prose, the pulsating sentiment, and the slightly embarrassing
mutual absorption of the subject couple, Boy Meets Boy recalls classic
romances such as Seventeenth Summer.
Levithan’s master stroke, however, lies in the setting, Paul’s fictional,
unnamed hometown, for which Paul has great fondness. It’s an interesting
place, operating fully within the rules of reality, but it’s a reality
that doesn’t quite currently exist. There Infinite Darlene, the transvestite
quarterback and Paul’s good friend, is also the homecoming queen; Paul’s
kindergarten teacher helpfully notes on his report card that he is “definitely
gay” (“and has very good sense of self”); P-FLAG is “as
big a draw as the PTA”; and the local Boy Scouts have renamed themselves
the “Joy Scouts” after renouncing the national association’s
gay-unfriendly policies. Nor is this a single-issue or polemical utopia: the
school janitors have made a fortune day-trading and just keep cleaning the school
for pleasure; there’s a touching custom in the local cemetery, where each
gravestone has a book attached so that people can read the writing of—or
write to—the deceased. The offbeat location allows the book to contrast
the lot of Tony, Paul’s good friend from the less egalitarian world of
the next town over, with that of Paul and his cronies, but it more importantly
relieves Paul’s relationship with Noah of political issues and permits
the story to revel in being luxuriantly, sparklingly romantic.
All the staring into each other’s eyes and civic good fellowship could
become somewhat cloying, but the book musters some powerful weapons against
saccharinity. Firstly, it’s adroitly witty (“Conversation is not a
strong suit,” Paul says of an annoying upperclassman; “in fact, I’m
not sure it’s a suit he owns”). Secondly, there are distinct obstacles
to bliss: Paul’s friend Tony is increasingly unhappy, Paul’s friend
Joni is becoming a doormat girlfriend to a jerky guy, and Paul’s ex-boyfriend
Kyle (who unconvincingly decided he was straight and consequently cold-shouldered
Paul) is reopening lines of communication—and perhaps more. Since Noah’s
still recovering from a previous cheating boyfriend, he’s uneasy about
Paul’s close connections, and when gossip starts to fly about Paul’s
closeness with Tony (false) and his reacquaintanceship with Kyle (true), it
looks like Paul and Noah’s relationship is doomed.
It all gets worked out, of course, and it’s appropriate to this book that
even the problems come as a result of Paul’s affection for people. The
love story actually goes beyond the relationship between Paul and Noah, since
Paul’s devoted to Tony (“More than anything in this strange life,
I want Tony to be happy”), hopeful for Kyle’s peace, and determined
that Joni deserves a better romantic fate than the one to which she’s currently
subjecting herself.
Nor does it stop there: Paul’s narration evinces a tremendous delight in
humanity in general and specific, in the many ways people connect with each
other, in how much we can matter to one another. In a genre filled with darkness,
torment, and anxiety, this is a shiningly affirmative and hopeful book; it’s
fitting that the final sentence is “And I think to myself, What a wonderful
world.” It may not quite be reality as any of its readers experience
it, but, then, that’s what fiction’s for.
Deborah Stevenson, Editor
Cover illustration from Boy Meets Boy ©2003. Used by permission
of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
This page was last updated on September 1, 2003.