War Boy

Last updated
War Boy
War Boy.jpg
AuthorKief Hillsbery
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
Published2000, William Morrow & Co
Media typeBook
Pages335
ISBN 9780688171414
OCLC 701799267

War Boy is the first novel by Kief Hillsbery, published in 2000 by Rob Weisbach Books, an imprint of William Morrow and Company. [1]

Contents

Plot outline

Radboy, a fourteen-year-old deaf skateboarder, leaves his abusive home for San Francisco and becomes involved with environmental politics and the underground club scene. [2] Principal characters include Radboy's older friend Jonnyboy, methamphetamine addict boyfriends Finn and Critter, and a Swedish environmentalist, Ula, whose fiancé has died, and who is seeking revenge for her sister's injury from a government-planted car bomb. Together the five plan to bomb the Hobart Building and kidnap Jonnyboy's boyfriend Roarke, in an attempt to save the redwoods. Hillsbery writes with a stream-of-consciousness narration style and frequently uses abbreviation and other teen slang. [3]

Reception

War Boy had a mixed reception on publication. Advocate rates it a "tentative thumbs-up", [2] describing it as disjointed and difficult to follow, but with a realism potentially appealing to young gay and lesbian teens. Jonathan Alexander of Lambda Book Report gives a more favorable review: "You don't always believe the characters, but you admire their punk bravado...War Boy is its own declaration of optimistic dissatisfaction, candid critique, and guerilla slapstick." Peter Marcus of Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide writes, "Sometimes the ride is fun, sometimes not, and all too often the internal monologue detracts from plot. Still, it is when the narrative pace slows down that we see Hillsbery's best writing, which is often beautiful, rich, and tender." [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bear (gay culture)</span> Term for heavily hairy, and usually muscular and bearded men

In gay culture, a bear is a larger and often hairier man who projects an image of rugged masculinity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomboy</span> A girl who behaves in a manner considered typical of boys

Tomboy is a term used for girls or young women with masculine traits. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and engaging in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT themes in speculative fiction</span>

LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.

Faggot, often shortened to fag, is a term, usually a pejorative, used to refer to gay men. In American youth culture around the turn of the 21st century, its meaning extended as a broader reaching insult more related to masculinity and group power structure.

<i>The Broken Hearts Club</i> 2000 American comedy-drama film

The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy is a 2000 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Greg Berlanti. It follows the lives of a group of gay friends in West Hollywood, centered on a restaurant owned by the fatherly Jack and the softball team he sponsors. The friends rely on each other for friendship and support as they search for love, deal with loss, and discover themselves.

A chickenhawk or chicken hawk is slang used in American and British gay culture to denote older males who prefer younger males for partners, who may less often be called "chickens", i.e., the prey of the chickenhawk. Other variations include chicken queen and chicken plucker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Holleran</span> American novelist, essayist, and short story writer

Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Florida. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met in 1980 and 1981 and also included Robert Ferro, Edmund White and Felice Picano. Following the critical and financial success of his first novel Dancer from the Dance in 1978, he became a prominent author of post-Stonewall gay literature. Historically protective of his privacy, the author continues to use the pseudonym Andrew Holleran as a writer and public speaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Kinney</span> Fictional character

Brian A. Kinney is a fictional character from the American/Canadian Showtime television series Queer as Folk, a drama about the lives of a group of gay men and lesbians living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The character was created by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who developed, wrote and executive-produced the series, and was portrayed by American actor Gale Harold during the show's five-year run.

LGBT themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities. Depending on when it was made, it may contain open statements of gender variance, sexuality, same-sex sexual imagery, same-sex love or affection or simply a sensibility that has special meaning to LGBTQ+ people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT themes in comics</span>

In comics, LGBT themes are a relatively new concept, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) themes and characters were historically omitted from the content of comic books and their comic strip predecessors due to anti-gay censorship. LGBT existence was included only via innuendo, subtext and inference. However the practice of hiding LGBT characters in the early part of the twentieth century evolved into open inclusion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and comics explored the challenges of coming-out, societal discrimination, and personal and romantic relationships between gay characters.

Gay teen fiction is a subgenre that overlaps with LGBTQ+ literature and young adult literature. This article covers books about gay and bisexual teenage characters who are male.

Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesbian literature</span> Subgenre of literature with lesbian themes

Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics.

Lesbian portrayal in media is generally in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage and parenting. Some writers have stated that lesbians have often been depicted as exploitative and unjustified plot devices. Common representations of lesbians in the media include butch or femme lesbians and lesbian parents. "Butch" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as masculine by dressing masculine, behaving masculinely, or liking things that are deemed masculine, while "femme" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as feminine by dressing feminine, behaving femininely, or liking things that are deemed feminine.

The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.

<i>The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide</i>

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide is a bimonthly, nationally distributed magazine of history, culture, and politics for LGBT people and their allies who are interested in the gamut of social, scientific, and cultural issues raised by same-sex sexuality. Library Journal described it as "the journal of record for LGBT issues."

<i>The Kid</i> (book)

The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant is a non-fiction book by Dan Savage. It was first published by Dutton in 1999. The book recounts the author's experiences during the process of adopting a child with his partner, Terry. Savage details for the reader his emotional states at various times during the adoption period and how it affected his life.

<i>Neverland</i> (film) 2003 American film

Neverland, full title Neverland: Never Grow Up, Never Grow Old, is a 2003 indie film by director Damion Dietz with New Media Entertainment and is a dark and surreal modern re-imagining of the classic of Peter Pan and other characters in J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up and 1911 novel Peter and Wendy.

<i>Making Gay History</i> LGBT history podcast

Making Gay History is an oral history podcast on the subject of LGBT history, featuring trailblazers, activists, and allies. Most episodes draw on the three-decade-old audio archive of rare interviews that the podcast's founder and host Eric Marcus conducted for the two editions of his oral history book about the LGBT movement, which he was commissioned to write in the late 1980s. In February 2020, Making Gay History was adapted for the stage at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

References

  1. "Forecasts: Fiction". Publishers Weekly. Vol. 247, no. 9. 2000-02-28.
  2. 1 2 A.B. (2000-05-23). "War Boy (Book Review)". Advocate. No. 812.
  3. 1 2 Marcus, Peter (Summer 2000). "The 'Anywayz' Traveler". Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. 7 (3): 58.