Bossy.it is a website working against every form of discrimination.
Golden Boy is a novel against sexual discrimination.
Golden Boy must find its space within Bossy.it
Aristoteles would be proud of my pseudosyllogism, provided that Golden Boy was the volume to best represent a specific class of human beings who have not yet been… understood. They are people like us, but they also perceive and live their sexuality at the furthest ends, because, as it is, the world still doesn’t see them as common human beings and prefers to label them as freaks to hide from and shun.
The Golden Boy in this book is Max, a beautiful boy, loved by his family, by his friends and by everyone who meets him. He is well known for his delicate features, for his great soccer skills and his alleged popularity with girls. Except for his family and for a childhood friend, no-one knows his secret: Max is intersex (I imagine many of you never thought this was actually a word). What does being intersex mean? It’s soon explained. The term is derived from latin: inter stands for “between, among”.
Like many other people in the world, the protagonist of this story presents both female and masculine sexual organs. As far as Max, he looks like a male and feels like a male, although he also has ovaries, making it possible for him to remain pregnant. The protagonist
doesn’t only find himself “between the two sexes”, but he is also given the male member as well as the ladies parts (if you look up “intersex genitalia” online, you can find explanative and simple illustrations of Max’s situation and people like him). If Elsa Mars could ever have Max in her freakshow, she’d have been over the moon. Forget about bearded women and two-headed people!
You might be wondering how on earth this book like this managed to be published in Italy. Don’t worry, I am too. At times, it really seems that 2015 has arrived in our country as well.
The beginning of the novel sees Max being abused by his childhood friend, the only one aware of Max’s intersexuality. Drunk and shameless, he mocks Max and possesses him against his will. Such a dramatic start might upset the reader, but don’t be afraid: if on the one hand the topic is undeniably serious, on the other hand the writing style is light, which is a rare thing for novels of this kind. Right in the first pages, Max leaves his childhood for good, he understands that even his best friend cannot be trusted; he is forced to face the harsh reality and he now examines everyone through a distorted point of view. After the rape, Max is entrenched in a wall of secret and lies he tells his beloved girlfriend, his parents, his ten-year-old brother and most of all himself. Poor Max lives a situation akin to that of a gay boy who lacks the courage to come out: Max wants to go on with his life, but at the same time he is compelled to ask his family and his close friends for approval.
The narration is built in a very peculiar manner: the events of Golden Boy are told through the perspective of all the characters in touch with Max: his mother, his father, his brother Daniel, his friend Sylvie and the doctor who hears Max’s spontaneous confession about his story and about the abuse. As a consequence, we don’t only come across Max’s standpoint but we also witness the other characters’ point of view as it changes, and their (re)actions.
Like the author stated in an interview: “All characters want the best for Max, yet they have different opinions on what that is” (Of course they all care for Max, just as long as they can keep the monster’s identity a secret!). Proof of this is given by a recurring line uttered by the mother: “Maybe we should have agreed to do the surgery when you were a little boy. Just for your sake. It’s for your sake I wanted you to have an easier life”. Inevitably the reader is compelled to reflect on the selfish attitude betrayed by the words of Max’s parents: do they really want their son to be happy, or do they see his intersexuality as a dirty secret to be kept from the world?
Turning Max into a “normal” boy was never an issue for his parents, until he started asking himself new questions; until he realised that a shag is not just a hairstyle and that he is subject to peer pressure, like any other teenager.
Abigail Tartellin shows all the many different sides to the story and she answers all the possible questions that arise in the reader’s mind, who in turn will feel satisfied, sad, cheerful accordingly.
In addition to the main goal of the author, i.e telling the painful experience of a boy “less ordinary”, Tartellin highlights many dramatic events lived by Max and his family. The protagonist himself struggles to understand wether he is a male or a female, and he is forced by his family to choose between the two; Max’s mother refuses to accept her son’s diversity and ends up blaming herself; Daniel, the younger brother, fails to understand his sibling’s feelings and constant anger; meanwhile Max’s father is running for elections and wonders (many many pages in) wether it is fair to put his family under the spotlight in such a delicate moment; Max cannot have any sexual relationship with Sylvie, the girl he’s in love with, and this problem slowly gnaws away at him; the doctor is bound to secrecy by her own profession and she cannot inform Max’s parents of the rape.
The events unfolding in Golden Boy are numerous, but the storytelling is precise and sensible, giving life to one of the best and most touching novels of the year.
Golden Boy strikes with the speed of lighting and tears the soul of the reader, it hits him/her like thunder narrating a little-known reality to trigger reflections, to spark questions about what is really right or what is wrong, to wonder wether we are all divided exclusively into male and female or wether we can just be ourselves, away from binary classifications.
This story is incredibly touching and moving, it narrates a terrible situation, true and deep in equal measure. Abigail Tarttelin’s oeuvre is not a novel dealing with sex, but with gender. Clerics or nonclerics, neither of them is yet at ease with certain themes, to the point they eagerly avoid discussing said topics altogether. No-one contemplates the possibility that there are people out there who don’t belong to any sex and are duly recognised all the same. Examples of this can be found in Germany, in Austria, in India…Spreading information is not an easy task, especially when it deals with sensitive, even touchy topics. This is exactly why books like Tartellin’s and websites like Bossy.it exist: the goal is to make the future a better place, for all. Golden Boy is, in short, a hard novel only for those who are not broad-minded enough to look outside their own backyard.
Written in a simple manner, this book is firm, clear, deep, intersexual…the reader will get to the last page wishing to read Max’s story forever. I recommend it to everyone: young people, adults, elderly people and children, so they won’t grow up convinced that their classmate “is a girl” because he prefers dolls over soccer.
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin is available in the UK for £12.99 and is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. The US edition is published by Atria Books for $24.99.
