The World of Normal Boys
Publisher
Kensignton Books
Publication Year
2000
ISBN
9781575666617
Pages
282 pages
Genre
realism
Format
novel
Item Type
Fiction
Annotation
The time is the late 1970s -- an age of gas shortages, head shops, and Saturday Night Fever. The place, suburban New Jersey. At a time when the teenagers around him are coming of age, Robin MacKenzie is coming undone. While "normal boys" are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother, spinning fantastic tales for her amusement in an intimate ritual he has come to love. He dutifully plays the role of the good son for his meat-and-potatoes father, even as his own mind is a jumble of sexual confusion and painful self-doubt. But everything changes in one horrifying instant, when a tragic accident wakes his family from their middle-American dream and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction.
Grade Level
9-12
Diversity Topics
Family Relationships; LGBTQ (Gender and Sexuality); Family member death; Gay/Lesbian; death of a brother; gay; gay teenager; same sex relationship
Main Character
male teenager
Race/Ethnicities
White
Family Formation
mother and father
LGBTQ+
gay male
Awards
Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction
Keywords
coming of age; 1970s; New Jersey; multiple relationships; accident; self-discovery
Diversity Impact
direct
STARS Citation
Soehnlein, K.M., "The World of Normal Boys" (2000). Diverse Families. 1431.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/1431