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kali76 's review for:
Invisible Boys
by Holden Sheppard
Wow. The quintessential 'coming-of-age' novel. Sheppard weaves the stories and perspectives of several teen boys coming to terms with their identities and sexual orientation in the MidWest town of Geraldton. Each of them yearns to get away, but they are trapped by the restrictions of family expectation, small-town gossipy minds, strictures of religion, and lack of role models (and prospective partners, too, I guess). The townscape is evoked so viscerally, I was yearning to go home to Gero. This is fiercely parochial, with smells, language, and social rituals that I have only ever known in that town. And yet, also universal, in the need to conform, to walk the line between being yourself or living falsely for fear of retribution and, here quite literally, their lives. As much as Sheppard's writing brought me a wave of nostalgia, he also conjured the dark side of Geraldton I'd repressed: the vicious narrowmindedness, which does not stop at homophobia, but also racism, and a place where quite literally there are boundaries drawn between who 'belongs' and who 'does not belong'. Such as who gets to be an 'insider'. I have never lived anywhere before where there are such stringent hurdles and delineations, and contortionist acts of identity that must be performed before being admitted as 'one of them' (specifically a surname on a street sign, and three generations in the boneyard). But as this book shows, these are fine lines in the sand, and one can be cast out, even from family, so very easily if you don't adhere. These lines between people also extend to the socio-economic divisions between suburbs, which Sheppard illustrates beautifully, through where each of the characters live. The side-by-side of suburbs of extreme squalour, with new beachside developments and semi-acreage. A book to rip your heart out.