Book 935: Dream Boy – Jim Grimsley

Bare with me for a moment as I go on a tangent. Recently, I’ve been obsessed with re-watching the Netflix adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series and I  couldn’t realize why other than it’s a fantastic series and adaptation, but then I read this book and it all clicked into place: queer joy.

Growing up in the 1990s/early-2000s I’d say 85%+ of all depictions of LGBT characters were tragic or left to interpretation and this is a prime example of that. Having the opportunity to watch Charlie and Nick in Heartstopper as they discover happiness and joy, even with setbacks, mental health issues, and added TV drama, is just such a wonderful feeling of relief and joy that I float along every time I watch it or listen to the soundtrack or think about it. And this is in stark contrast to Roy and Nathan, the protagonists of Grimsley’s second foray into the novel.

I’m not going to do a direct comparison, because it’s not what this post is for, but having that click into place made a big difference as I re-read this novel and only fueled the trepidation as I neared the end knowing what was coming and it’s (lack of) ambiguity.

It is a new feeling, not like friendship. Not like anything. Nathan has had friends before, especially before the family began to move so often. This feeling is stranger, forcing Nathan to remember things he does not want to remember. (12)

I haven’t read this since the early 2000s, not long after I read Winter Bird and I forgot how beautiful Grimsley’s writing was. There’s a lyricism to the beauty of Nathan and Roy’s relationship and the trauma that ensues throughout the novel.

It is a kind of church, requiring reverence. This revelation comes to Nathan as he is gazing from side to side, guarding the delight and freedom of the moment as if they must be protected carefully in order to preserve them. He refuses to allow happiness to show in his expression, cultivating the careful indifference of Roy, the swagger of his hips, the practiced ease through-and-under branches. They are swimming through golden light, traveling through a green- and gold-leafed choir. (112)

And the book is a lot more explicit than I thought it was, not only about sex on the page but also about the sexual abuse Nathan has faced in the past and the sexual assault that is the climax of the book. I remembered everything in the book just in fuzzy detail which made it less harrowing over time and allowed me to enjoy everything leading up to the final scenes even with the feeling of knowing dread.

I can’t recall if this is the first explicit LGBT sex scene that I read growing up in a novel, but having the loving scenes between Nathan and Roy be bookended by child abuse and sexual assault and sexual assault and (attempted) murder must have left a mark on my psyche, like reading The Laramie Project or any of the other works similarly dark.

Where Grimsley shows his mastery is with the vague ending and whether you want it to be a happy ending or a bittersweet terrifying ending. I’m still not sure what actually happened because it has a bit of magical realism, reincarnation, and southern gothic ghost story all mixed into one. I don’t think Nathan survives. I don’t think he treks to the church and finds Roy.

I think it’s a projection of what he wanted to happen and his last fleeting moments of consciousness created a scenario that allowed him to die peacefully after the trauma of being abused and raped by multiple people over his life and being abandoned by the person he was falling in love with after finally receiving the physical reciprocation of his love of which he never thought he was worthy. Yes, it’s dark and bitter, but to willfully move away from the trauma that we experienced just pages before is impossible and frankly, when the novel was written there was little to no hope of a happily ever after for a gay kid in the south.

Recommendation: This is an incredibly dark and moving novel. There are moments of beauty and light as Nathan explores a newfound relationship with Roy, who is probably bisexual but bisexuals didn’t exist during this time in the South, and gays were barely deigned to exist. Grimsley writes beautiful passages that portray love and trauma and abuse hauntingly. Perhaps the ending is as hopefully as Nathan wanted it to be, but for me, it’s the tragedy that Roy has to experience and more of a glorious hallucination of what could’ve been versus the agonizing truth of what he has to live with.

Opening Line: “On Sunday in the new church, Preacher John Roberts tells about the disciple Jesus loved whose name was also John, how at the Last Supper John lay his head tenderly on Jesus’s breast.”

Closing Line: “They stand and go. They never look back.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from Dream Boy
“The principles of algebra break over Nathan like day. What has not before been known—the undiscovered element in any circumstance—may be ferreted out, exposed to light. Nathan watches Roy’s hands on the pages, his brows knit together as he reads. There is an unknown here in this room. X and Y hang in the air between them.” (22)

“Roy will treat Nathan as he pleases, and Nathan expects the coldness. In the daylight Nathan will be invisible.” (32)

“Nathan learns that Roy will kiss but he will not kneel in front of Nathan as Nathan will kneel in front of him. Nathan learns that he himself is somehow different from Roy, governed by other laws.” (55)

“Nathan sees, in a fleeting way, the irony that what pleases him with Roy terrifies him with his father. He glimpses this, he has no words for the thought. The moment of dread soon passes.” (101)

“‘Did you ever come to a place and feel like you’d been there before?’
The frown deepens. ‘No.’
Silence. ‘Did you? Do you feel like you been here before?’
‘Not quite.’ Whispered so quietly Nathan can hardly hear the words himself. ‘It’s more like I’ll never leave.'” (160)

“It is as if he deserves it, as if both he and Burke understand that he is made for this use. There is a hole in Nathan, and Burke can see it; Dad opened a hole in Nathan, and now anyone can use it. He opens his mouth, he makes a circle. Burke pushes inside.” (172)