Golden Boy Tour Stop (Review/Interview)

TITLE Golden Boy
AUTHOR Abigail Tarttelin
PUBLICATION May 21st 2013 by Atria Books
READ May 03 to 04, 2013
SOURCE From Simon & Schuster Canada for review

From a rising literary star Abigail Tarttelin comes an unforgettable novel about a boy, a secret, and the single traumatizing event that sends his seemingly charmed life into tailspin.

Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he’s the perfect son, the perfect friend, and a perfect crush for the girls in his school. He’s even really nice to his little brother, Daniel, a decidedly imperfect ten-year-old. Karen Walker is a beautiful, highly successful criminal lawyer, who works hard to maintain the facade of effortless excellence she has constructed over the years. Now that the boys are getting older, now that she won’t have as much control, she worries that the facade might soon begin to crumble. Steve Walker is also a successful prosecutor, so much so that he is running for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.

But the Walkers have a secret. Max was born with forty-six XX chromosomes and forty-six XY chromosomes, which makes him intersex. He identifies as a boy and so has been raised lovingly that way. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of Max’s past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won’t his parents talk about it? Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Who is Max and who will he be in the years ahead?

While Max and his family face life-changing questions, revelations, and the ever-present threat that Hunter presents, Max falls in love. He might be flawed, but could he be the perfectly imperfect boyfriend for misfit Sylvie Clark, the oddball loner in his class?

Told in first person narratives alternating between Max, Daniel, Karen, Sylvie, Steve, and Archie, the physician who attempts to guide Max through this pivotal moment in his life, Golden Boy is at once a riveting novel of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

GOLDEN BOY is by far the most thought-provoking, eye-opening novel I have read in a long time. I was hit straight off the bat with an unflinching realism and thrown into a family who was dealing with issues that I knew barely anything of. Back in 1999 I watched the movie Boy’s Don’t Cry and it was the first I had ever heard of intersex (back then it was hermaphrodites) individuals. This book took me back into a mind frame where I was curious, emotional and almost in awe at the same time. Not only do we meet Max, who is intersex, but along with him we meet his family who is trying to do their best to find him his place in the world.

The part of this story that stood out to me the most was the family dynamic of the Walker’s. None of them were perfect and they all had incredibly selfish thoughts here and there but in the end they were truly looking out for one another. In the beginning I questioned Steve’s (the dad) devotion to his family, he seemed to be putting his career before everything that was going on at home and he did for much of the novel. But once we start to see all the sides of the story (through the very well done multiple POV’s) we see that there is so much more to his actions and intentions. The mother, Karen, was a difficult person for me to come to understand but once again, once my eyes were opened to everything that was going on I’m not sure I can say I would have been much different if thrown into the same situations. Daniel and Max had a wonderful relationship and seeing the story through Daniel’s eyes was great. He was the innocent onlooker, I felt. He didn’t have all the details of what was going on with his brother or why he was feeling the way that he was, and he didn’t really care. He just wanted to know that he was OK and to get on with life.

All of these characters came to life for me because Tartellin mastered their voices. Each one felt so distinct that I always knew whose perspective I was reading without question. This was done to the point that I was annoyed with Daniel’s POV at first because of how juvenile and repetitive it was, but that’s because it was so perfectly a 9-year olds way of thinking and speaking about things. The character that I connected the most to was Max. His struggles in finding out who he was were heartbreaking and I felt so incredibly sad for him as he forged his way through everything that was thrown at him. Not only did he have to make it through some rough patches but all of it brought to light that he didn’t know who he was or where he fit in the world which no one should ever have to feel.

This novel was an eye opening experience for me as I saw first hand the struggles that an intersex individual can go through in their life. The feelings of displacement, of shame and of a disconnect to things such as sex and marriage really took their toll on Max and it was hard to read at times. As I said before I don’t know too much about the “condition” (for lack of a better word) but I found myself googling a lot throughout the story and finding real life stories that paralleled his in many ways. I also appreciated how we would get a doctors perspective at times which made it possible to teach the reader at the same time that they are reading.

A strong novel that will get your emotions going and leave you wanting to talk about it for hours, GOLDEN BOY does not disappoint. The voices of the characters are strong and the relationships are ones that jump off the page. If you are in the market for a rather unconventional novel with a New Adult feel, this is the one for you.

Interview with author Abigail Tarttelin

What was your inspiration for writing GOLDEN BOY?

Several experiences and works of art inspired me to write Golden Boy. ‘The Women’s Room’ by Marilyn French first had me thinking about gender and feminism. Secondly, having seen XXY in 2009, an Argentinian feature film featuring an intersex protagonist, made me think that I could explore gender through the eyes of someone who had no need to define themselves as either male or female, but was pressured to do so by their family and community. Finally, the summer before I wrote Golden Boy, I was thinking about the way men treat women and vice versa, particularly in regards to rape culture and catcalling across the street. I thought that life must be such a different experience in some ways for men and women, even though gender seems to be so arbitrary and nothing to do with our own choices. Through the eyes of Max, Golden Boy’s protagonist, I felt like I could explore how it felt to be a woman with the surprise of someone who had been brought up as a male.

Which of the characters in the novel do you identify with most?

There are aspects of my experience and my point of view in every character in Golden Boy, but I probably identify with Max and Sylvie most. I’m a little less bold than Sylvie, and a little more insistent than Max, but when I was in school I dealt with aspects of gender roles that Max and Sylvie deal with in the book, for instance the strange segregation of girls and boys in high school, or feeling that encroaching fear as you grow up as a girl and realise that the night is not your friend.

Golden Boy is a split POV novel, why did you decide that was the way you wanted to tell this story?

I enjoy writing in the first person and getting into the minds of my characters. I believe at the moment, for me, that is the best way to understand them and communicate their feelings. I also think Max’s situation has a lot to do with point of view, and I wanted the reader to understand why his parents might react the way he did, why the doctor doesn’t tell anyone, Sylvie’s background in dealing and thoughts on gender, and why Max makes the choices he does.

What has been your favorite part of publishing GOLDEN BOY?

I have thoroughly enjoying my warm-up reading gigs in London. This week I read form Golden Boy at an event called ‘Speakeasy’ and also wrote a story and performed for the ting Hill International Book Festival. I have so much fun meeting readers and I feel that performing really transforms writing into something even more personal to the person who wrote it. That is why I cannot WAIT to tour the US and Canada! I think it will be so exciting and I’m planning on making a video diary for each city on www.abigailtarttelin.com!

I saw that there is some interest in a GOLDEN BOY movie possibly happening, do you have any ideas as to who you would like to see portray the main characters?

I see a Golden Boy movie as a sort of The Kids Are All Right independent film. It’s about gender, where The Kids was about sexuality, but both stories are set in a loving family, in a very nice community and I think that makes the difficult themes much more accessible to audiences. On my facebook page at www.facebook.com/abigailtarttelin I’ve uploaded some ideas for cast, but I’m really interested to see what other people think! I can totally see Naomi Watts as a brilliant Karen though! And this wasn’t how I saw Steve to begin with, but I think Patrick Wilson would make a great Steve. Max would have to be a young River Phoenix type! I’d love Quvenzhané Wallis to be able to play Sylvie, but she’s a bit young right now.

What are some of your early influences that shaped your writing style? (music, books, movies, etc.)

I don’t know if they shaped my writing style, but I’ve read almost everything by Enid Blyton! I was very inspired too by Hunter S Thompson’s The Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Every time I pick up a book I tend to write a piece of prose in that style. But I have always been a huge film fan and offbeat, quirky French films or Spanish films like the works of Pedro Almodovar have influenced me greatly. When I was sixteen or seventeen, my English teacher gave me a copy of The Cement Garden, a novel by Ian McEwan, and I realised that I could write about anything, literally anything. Until then I had just read the classics, and although I love them, they didn’t show me that contemporary culture was an acceptable topic for a novel.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?

I would absolutely LOVE to have a writing room. I’m 25 and I’ve never owned a property or rented anywhere bigger than one room in a shared apartment, so I really would love to find a home one day soon where I can have a little writing nook. A friend of mine has a shed he used for recording music in his garden. I’d like to build a tree house to write in in my (currently inexistent) garden!

What are you reading right now? What’s your most anticipated book at the moment?

I just read Sahar Delijani’s Children of the Jacaranda Tree, and it’s wonderful! Sahar is also really nice – I met her the other day because we share the same English language editors! So that’s two reasons to read her book. I am currently looking for the next book to catch my eye. I want one that I’ll really love and will savour. Recommendations welcome!

Abigail's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

In May 2013, from twenty-five-year-old literary rising star Abigail Tarttelin comes Golden Boy - an unforgettable novel about a boy, a secret, and the single traumatizing event that sends his seemingly charmed life into tailspin.

Abby writes for London Fashion Magazine Phoenix and hails from Grimsby, England. She grew up in a field in the middle of nowhere, and likes reading, films, astronomy, the wilds, The Big Bang Theory and Buffy The Vampire Slayer!