Wide Awake is a speculative young adult fiction novel by David Levithan published in 2006. It is set in the near future, after fictitious events such as The Greater Depression (a.k.a. The Debt, Deficit, and Fuel Depression), the establishment of Worldwide Health Care, and The Reign of Fear, which included The War to End All Wars.
Duncan Weiss — the gay Jewish protagonist of the story. He is in a serious relationship with Jimmy Jones.
James "Jimmy" Jones — Duncan's boyfriend. He is African-American.
Mira — a Chinese-American girl who was in a long-term relationship with Keisha.
Keisha — an African-American girl who is caught in a love triangle between Mira and Sara.
Sara — a college student who has taken the semester off to help Stein's campaign.
Janna — a Jesus Freak who is best friends with Mandy. Her parents were involved with the Jesus Revolution from the start.
Mandy — a Jesus Freak who is best friends with Janna. Her family were nonbelievers until, while her father was out of work and her mother was undergoing treatment for cancer, they attended church with Mandy's aunt.
Gus — a gay Jesus Freak postconsumer activist. He has an unusual manner of speech.
Sue — a friend of Duncan's; whose trans father left him when he was young.
Jesse Marin — the son of Decent parents. He antagonizes the students who support Stein's campaign.
Satch — a friend of Jesse's.
Mary Catherine - Cathy is a former friend of Janna and Mandy's. She became a Decent and changed her name to Mary Catherine, and broke off all further contact with her former friends.
Abraham Stein — the gay Jewish candidate for President of the United States. He has a 45-year-old husband, Ron, and two children, Jeffrey and Jess. His running mate is Alice Martinez. It is possible that Stein is based on the gay Jewish writer Gertrude Stein.
Mr. Cotter — the Principal of Duncan's school.
Mr. Farnsworth — one of the teachers at Duncan's school. He warns Duncan not to provoke Mr. Davis in class.
Mr. Davis — a Decent teacher at Duncan's school. He is an Iraq War re-enactor.
Ms. Kaye — the 65-year-old librarian at Duncan's school. She supports the Stein/Martinez campaign.
Holy Ghostwriter — a Jesus Revolution pop act. Songs include "I Freak Out For Jesus".
The novel opens with the revelation that the United States has just elected into power Abe Stein, its first openly gay (and Jewish) president. Alongside running mate Alice Martinez, Stein won a tight race by the mere margin of 1,000 Kansas votes, signalling a watershed for progressive politics, which take the limelight for the first time in decades.
Although the lives of American homosexuals are drastically improved even before Stein's election, what and the country is in the main far more liberal, it remains divided along acute political lines: as Hoffman notes, "the pendulum has merely swung slightly to the left, thanks to voters fed up with economic inequality, ongoing health crises and a politically motivated 'War to End All Wars' against 'extremists everywhere.'" [1]
The novel's focus, however, is on the personal impact of the election on a teenager named Duncan, who is also Jewish and openly gay. Although too young to vote, he is a strong supporter of Stein; thus, when the conservative governor demands a recount, and Stein's followers are prevailed upon to gather in support, he finds himself in a dilemma between his parents, who want him to stay home, and his politically passionate boyfriend, who demands that he stand up for what he believes in.
Wide Awake was generally well received. Hoffman praised in particular its skilful mingling of the political with the personal, going so far as to draw comparisons with John Fox's The Boys on the Rock , although he noted dissimilarities that were far more conspicuous: "Just 22 years separate these books, but the worlds they inhabit seem impossibly distant." [1] For one thing, whereas The Boys on the Rock is set in the past, Wide Awake looks to the near future, "likely a couple of decades from now." [1]
Hoffman was not entirely impressed, though:
Predicting trends — particularly regarding teenagers' fashions and slang — is difficult, and Levithan sometimes stumbles. It's hard to imagine even politically aware teens flocking to a "non-mall," where anti-consumers shop for items they'd like to buy, only to forgo those purchases and donate to charity the cash they could have spent on themselves. And it's hard to imagine anyone actually saying, "There's nothing like a little non-shopping to get your mind back to happyzoom." [1]
"But," he noted, "if minor details ring false, the major elements of Wide Awake seem essentially plausible. Levithan outlines a world of new possibilities for gay Americans, without positing a utopia where homophobia has vanished and the entire country has changed political orientation." [1]
On one level, it is a straightforward, earnest tale of a teenager finding himself, complete with a few somewhat steamy sex scenes. But on a deeper level, it is a story about what might be possible "in the near future" for young gay adults, for social activists and, indeed, for America. It is an optimistic scenario, but Levithan makes it appear almost within reach, personally and politically. [1]
— Hoffman 2006
"Progressive activists have long asserted that the personal is political," wrote Hoffman in his review for The Washington Post . "In David Levithan's young-adult novel Wide Awake, that old slogan gains new life. And the reverse is also true: In Wide Awake, the political is personal in unprecedented ways." [1]
He went on to observe that, whereas in Fox's The Boys on the Rock, the main political character was in the eyes of the protagonist only a politician, "Duncan sees in Stein a reflection of himself. If Stein wins, Duncan shares the victory as a gay Jew who can, at last, truly imagine becoming president one day." [1]
The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together, either in reference to Christianity's derivation from Judaism, Christianity's recognition of Jewish scripture to constitute the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, or values supposed to be shared by the two religions. The term Judæo Christian first appeared in the 19th century as a word for Jewish converts to Christianity. The term has received much criticism, largely from Jewish thinkers, as relying on and perpetuating inherently antisemitic notions of supersessionism, as well as glossing over fundamental differences between Jewish and Christian thought, theology, culture and practice.
A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloquial usage, the term can also refer to any person who suffers a significant consequence in protest or support of a cause.
Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.
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The Wide Awakes were a youth organization and later a paramilitary organization cultivated by the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election in the United States. Using popular social events, an ethos of competitive fraternity, and even promotional comic books, the organization introduced many to political participation and proclaimed itself as the newfound voice of younger voters. The structured militant Wide Awakes appealed to a generation which had been profoundly shaken by the partisan instability in the 1850s, and offered young northerners a much-needed political identity.
David Levithan is an American young adult fiction author and editor. He has written numerous works featuring strong male gay characters, most notably Boy Meets Boy and Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List. Six of Levithan's books have won or been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, making him the most celebrated author in the category.
Jill Ellen Stein is an American physician and activist. She is the Green Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2024 election, and was previously its candidate in the 2012 and 2016 elections. She was the Green-Rainbow Party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. Stein is among the list of several women who have run for President of the United States and also one of the few who received over a million votes in the general election behind both Hillary Clinton and Jo Jorgensen.
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Michael Gold was the pen-name of Jewish American writer Itzok Isaac Granich. A lifelong communist, Gold was a novelist and literary critic. His semi-autobiographical novel Jews without Money (1930) was a bestseller. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gold was considered the preeminent author and editor of U.S. proletarian literature.
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Jacqueline Laura Hoffman is an American actress, singer, and comedian known for her one-woman shows of Jewish-themed original songs and monologues. She is a veteran of Chicago's famed The Second City comedy improv group.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a novel by John Green and David Levithan, published in April 2010 by Dutton Juvenile. The book's narrative is divided evenly between two boys named Will Grayson, one of whom is straight and is referred to in capitalized letters, and the other who is gay and is referred to in lowercase. Presented in alternating chapters, Green wrote all of the chapters for "Will Grayson" (capitalized) and Levithan wrote all the chapters for "will grayson" (lowercase). The novel debuted on The New York Times children's best-seller list after its release and remained there for three weeks. It was the first LGBT-themed young adult novel to make it to that list.
Rachel Cohn is an American young adult fiction writer. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and younger children's books, and has collaborated on six books with the author David Levithan.
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