Boys of Alabama “American boys are clever, thought Max, and they want to trick you.” Max is a German teenager unexpectedly transplanted to rural Alabama when his father, who works for Volkswagen, transfers to a U.S. plant. His preconception of southern youth is modeled on Tom Sawyer, who he recalls conning his neighbors into whitewashing a fence. In the contemporary America of Genevieve Hudson’s bewitching salamagundi of a first novel, the locals locals have different tricks up their sleeves: The small town of Delilah is home to a holy rolling Fundamentalist church where worshippers—including most of Max’s school football teammates—handle snakes and speak in tongues. Max also struggles with strangeness of his own: For one thing, he’s gay; for another he has the power to revive dead things. Max’s closest new American friend is a genderqueer Latinx goth boy named Pan, who—thanks to Hudson’s provocative resistance of virtually every stereotype her characters might suggest—is not a butt of bullying who Max swoops in to save. Merging Norman Rockwell charm, Shirley Jackson chills and achy teen romance, Hudson builds a singular fictive world with a lyrical tone all its own.
Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was Originally published in 2016, this eerie, erotic historical fantasy by the poet and novelist Sjon takes on new urgency in the era of the coronavirus. Set in Reykjavik, Iceland during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, this haunting, under-200-page tale it follows a 16-year-old rent boy whose obsession with silent film blends with his dreams and his fevered imagination. Balancing sex, cinema and horror in a shimmering equipoise, Sjon—with the impressive translator Victoria Cribb—will creep into your head with this unshakable story of alienation and strange magic. A spooky, sparkling gem.
