Tony
Heyes, our international reviewer, presents reviews of three novels
this issue.On this page, Tony reviews All American Boy by William J. Mann
Publishers, writers, if you have a book you would like Tony to review, please contact him directly. Tony resides in England. He always brings a unique perspective to his reviews of American novels.
All American BoyBy William J. Mann
Published by Kensington Books 2005
ISBN: 0-7582-0328-4
How are we to characterise the all American boy? Hollywood would have us believe that he is engagingly modest with a toothsome smile and corn-fed good looks. He is helpful, polite, athletic, intelligent, unquestioningly patriotic, lacking introspection and always makes love wearing boxer shorts. Like a boy scout, he always does his best. (“Dyb! Dyb! Dyb!”) Obviously he is a theoretical construct, not so much a stereotype as an ideal type and, as such, impossible to live up to. Unfortunately for Wally Day, the leading subject of William J. Mann’s All American Boy, some people are expected to conform to this stereotype. He is one of them. Wally has the looks and the brains but is introspective, uninterested in sport and is (quelle horreur!) gay. Unfortunately for him he is voted “All American Boy” by his local branch of the American Legion and cannot help but fail to meet the expectations of those who crowned him with these unlooked for laurels. Far from being exemplary he is, like the rest of us, adrift on the sea of his own inadequacy.
The story opens with Wally, an out of work actor in his early thirties, being summoned home by his mother who fears for her sanity. Regina is a mentally fragile, self-effacing woman of low self-worth. She seems always to have been at the mercy of powerful, unpleasant men. First her father, then her Uncle Axel, then Wally’s father whom she “had” to marry when she became pregnant and, latterly, Wally’s thoroughly nasty cousin Kyle. (An intriguing choice of name - in Scotland a kyle is a narrow channel between two islands.) Kyle has been preying on Regina, bullying her and extorting money from her. Now he has mysteriously disappeared. Wally reluctantly agrees to return home and the story unfolds from there.
To say that the story “unfolds” is to do Mr. Mann an injustice. Through the minds of both Wally and Regina the past as well as the present are slowly revealed. We assemble their stories through flashbacks, moments of insight and sudden accesses of long-buried memories. We come to realise that Wally is as fragile as his mother. He has been as much a victim of his father as she was. Like her, he too has been in the “funny farm”. The love of his life, Ned, died of AIDS seven years ago after a ten year relationship and Wally has never ceased to grieve for him. He carries with him a sack load of grievances, resentment and self-pity and is unable to look beyond himself.
His father was a serving naval officer. In his absence life was fine. When he was home Wally’s life was made a misery by his inability to be the son his father wanted. Wally was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps as his father had followed in his father’s, but Wally wanted to be an actor. Regina was unable to stand up to her husband or to encourage Wally in his ambitions. No one offered him any protection from the straight world, lumbered as he was by his father’s expectations and the ridiculous title. One day salvation beckoned in the shape of Zandy, a local hippy, whom Wally makes a move on in his early teens. Zandy responds and teaches Wally all he knows even though their relationship is illegal. Meanwhile Wally’s father has left the navy under a cloud for unspecified reasons and taken to drink, making everyone’s life a misery. A redneck to his very core, one day he follows Wally to Zandy’s, whereupon Wally denounces Zandy to the police. His motives are not clear, even to him. Is it to spite his father, to spite Zandy, or to relieve himself of the burden of being the all American boy? Zandy is sent to prison, Wally’s dad hangs himself and Wally takes refuge at the home of a local transsexual who, coincidentally, was in the “funny farm” with Wally’s mother, before going off to college and life of an actor. Since the death of Ned there has been nothing but a series of one night stands. Wally’s past seems to cast a pall over his life. Ostensibly returning home to help his mother, he wants to make amends to Zandy.
He finds Zandy dead. His mother’s confusion seems to be focussed on Kyle’s disappearance. She is convinced she murdered him. She may or may not have. Is this another of her hallucinations? Is Wally in danger of entering into them? By the end of the book Wally has been seduced by the sixteen year old Dee as Zandy was seduced by him. Dee is being fostered by the very transsexual who gave him sanctuary. He begins to see that his mother was a victim as much as he was and is beginning, for the first time in years, to think of others’ misery. His salvation may even be at hand. The circle is nearing completion.
This incomplete outline of the plot does scant justice to Mr. Mann’s book. It is complex, multi-layered and a tour de force of characterisation. The switches in chronology in the narrative, at first disconcerting, accurately mirror the thought processes of the protagonists. A perfect marriage of form to content, All American Boy conveys beautifully how our perceptions occur spasmodically rather than in a linear fashion, and how our interior worlds are chaotic and only partially comprehended even by ourselves. This is a book that will repay re-reading – one for the shelves rather than the airport waste bin; a thoroughly recommendable novel.