A Most Excellent Novel

[rsadelle]

Last week I read Steve Kluger's My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park, and if there's any justice in the world, this is only one of many reviews of it to play off the "excellent" in the title for the review headline. With five and a half months to go, I'm already prepared to say that My Most Excellent Year is one of the best books of 2008. I'm even willing to go out on a limb and say that it's one of the best books of the decade.

The book is the story of the year T.C. and Augie met Alejandra and Hucky. The story is structured as journal assignments by T.C., Augie, and Alejandra, interspersed with emails and IM conversations.

INSTRUCTIONS: While we're studying Anne Frank, try to remember that a diary isn't just a book with blank pages. It's a place where you can put down all of the thoughts and feelings that nobody else knows you have. Anne Frank called hers "Dear Kitty." So think carefully before you give your own diary a name.

T.C. (real name Anthony Conigliaro Keller, Tick to Augie, Tony C to Pop, and Anthony to teachers and Alejandra) addresses his diary to his mother, who died when he was six, just before he became friends with Augie. Augie addresses his diary to a series of divas of the week (Liza Minnelli, Natalie Wood, Lauren Bacall, Angela Lansbury, Judy Garland). Alejandra addresses her diary to Jacquelyn Kennedy.

When they were six, T.C. and Augie chose to be brothers, to the point that even to this day, they share both bedrooms at both houses and their families vacation and spend holidays together. In ninth grade, Alé moves to Brookline and joins their class. Alé's parents are diplomats, and she's something of an embarrassment to the family:

"Alejandra, say hello to the Prime Minister of Denmark."

"Why?"

I don't mean to suggest that I disliked the Prime Minister of Denmark, or any of his policies for that matter. I was five. I would have answered with the same "Why?" had I been told "Abuela is taking you to see the elephants," "It isn't polite to talk about Tía Maria's mustache," and "Don't flush until you wipe." You really couldn't take me anywhere.

That's from pages 10-11, and that's where I first laughed out loud, to the startlement of the coworkers sharing the table with me at lunch.

Augie is, if you haven't guessed it yet, gay and fabulous. His preoccupations for the year are directing the talent show, Andy Wexler, and performing in a school production of Kiss Me, Kate. I fell in love with Augie just about the moment we met him.

AugieHwong: I'm having an anxiety attack.

TCKeller: Is it a new one? 'Cause I'm working on my diary.

AugieHwong:Tick, it's happening too quick, that's what scares me. How did I get to be an A-list director already?? Where's all the torture you're supposed to go through before you click? And the hard knocks? And the setbacks you're supposed to learn from? I haven't suffered enough yet.

TCKeller: Dude, it's just a talent show!

T.C. is unconsciously cool and is really the lynchpin of the story. In addition to his brotherhood with Augie, his falling in love with Alé, and his extravagant school projects with Pop, he meets Hucky, a deaf six-year-old living in a group home.

So halfway through the second run-through of "A Spoonful of Sugar," I pointed to Julie Andrews and said "You like her, huh?" When Hucky answered back with more hand signals I didn't understand, I knew I was going to have to copy them down and run them by Mr. Landey again.

MR. LANDEY: He says he's been waiting for Mary Poppins to come live with him since he was four.

Mama, I may need some help here.

The book is largely hilarious with a smattering of touching moments and more than a touch of magic. Two specific additional bits I loved: First, Alé backstage at the talent show:

Lee's grip on my trembling shoulders growing inexplicably stronger until I realized that she'd been replaced by Anthony, who began whispering softly into my ear as we moved closer and closer toward the end of the show. "Stop shaking. Augie's been talking about you for forty-eight hours straight without taking a breath. He doesn't even do that for Madonna."

Secondly, the way T.C. and Augie talk about Hucky:

From: TCKeller@earthworks.net
To: AlePerez@earthworks.net

I have to. Hucky is Augie 8 years ago, only without the bok choy sandwich. I know I can get through to this kid.

and:

TCKeller: Or maybe it happens all the time, but since Mateo's deaf and can't hear him, nobody knows about it.

AugieHwong: Please don't go there. It reminds me of you when we were seven.

TCKeller: I cried in my sleep??

AugieHwong: All the nights I stayed over you did. I never felt so clueless in my life.

When I was finished with the book, I realized that one of the things I liked best about it was that it takes place in our time, and yet it's sweet and funny and magical and not cynical and oversexed the way most modern-day YA novels are. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that; sex has its place. But I didn't realize how much I missed something more cheerful and innocent until I finished My Most Excellent Year.

Overall, I highly recommend the book. For the four of you for whom the "highly recommended" is upgraded to an "absolutely must read" (thefuturenow, schuyler, and j_crew_guy and elekdragon), copies of the book should be arriving in/on your doorstep/mailbox/desk shortly, if they haven't already. The rest of you should beg, borrow, or buy a copy from your local friends, library, or book store.

Comments

[meacoustic.livejournal.com]

I got it today! I am not reading your post here about it until I can read it!

[rsadelle]

Yay! Come back and talk about it when you're done.

[schuyler.livejournal.com]

This book is so beyond wonderful. I read it all in one breath, and I don't think I've done that since my Armistead Maupin phase when I was 15. I also didn't realize that he'd written Almost Like Being in Love, which everyone was raving about when I got to New York, and which sounds, honestly, like Augie and Andy for grown-ups. I went to Amazon to check it out, and it said that people who bought this book also bought The Tin Star. That's kismet.

[rsadelle]

That is kismet! I'd never even heard of him or any of his books before I stumbled on this one in the feminist bookstore in Madison while I was there for WisCon.