A GLBT YA Book to Skip: One Man Guy a review by Sean Click at Sonoma State

I'm gonna bathe and shave
And dress myself and eat solo every night
Unplug the phone, sleep alone
Stay way out of sight
Sure it's kind of lonely
Yeah it's sort of sick
Being your own one and only
Is a dirty selfish trick

Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune
One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy

I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me.

The above lyrics and The title of this book come from "One Man Guy" a song written by folk singer Loudon Wainright and recorded much later by  his son and Gay icon recording artist Rufus Wainwright  I chose this book because I have loved this song for a long time.   The song's theme is about the self indulgent unsatisfying yet at times satisfying aspect of being single.   It was my theme song until I was 35 years old.   The author never references the lyrics in the book.  This Young Adult novel is not about loneliness at all.     It is about a teenage boy  suddenly becoming aware of his homosexuality and  immediately discovering love and togetherness in another boy, who comes from a background very different than his own.  This actually is a recurrent theme whether between gay characters or straight characters in romantic themes in the three Young Adult fiction novels  I have read thus far in this Literature and Literacy course.  Romantic attraction between individuals from different socio-economic or cultural backgrounds must be something teens want to explore, but it seems a little formulaic and predictable.  One second thought though these similarly themed books could be good scaffolding for teaching Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and its universal theme.

        In One Man Guy by Michael Barkiva, Alek Khederian the main character is the youngest son of second  generation Armenian parents.   The family makes Armenian culture and its relentless work ethic its focus.  Alek along with his older brother who is a senior in high school two years older, are pressured to make perfect grades in their classes.  Alek's dad is out of work and his mother carries the financial load of the family working a high paced accounting job in Manhattan.  The family resides in Suburban northern New Jersey and she commutes back and forth on the train 30 minutes each way into the City.   Alek is not allowed to go into the city unsupervised. And despite being in such close proximity to the Capitol of the World, he has only visited a few times ever.  He's never been to the Met, Central Park or Greenwich Village.  That is until he meets Ethan, a renegade son of Bohemian intellectuals, in his summer school math course. 

Eathan is everything Alek is not.  He's tall, blonde,  dressed in Skater gear head to toe.  He's part of the cool crowd self proclaimed "Dead on Arival, DOA"  dudes at school who don't sit with anyone else at lunch, especially girls or nerds.   And what is the biggest difference in the two, well of course Ethan is openly gay!    Eathan loves Rufus Wainwright and I guess the author does too, which may lessen the seemingly arbitrary titling of this novel. 

In math class Alek ends up helping Ethan out of a bind with the teacher.  Ethan thanks him, and then all of sudden Alek out of the blue realizes that he is also gay and the two become boyfriends.    I found this highly unrealistic.  I think it could actually be troubling to most gay boys and girls to read that sexuality is somehow just a matter of meeting the right person to spark a flame that you didn't know existed before inside yourself.  Alek is portrayed as having an epiphany.   To make maters even more unsettling, everyone in Alek's family is immediately accepting and loving of this newly discovered definiteness.   Their only concern is that he not become so distracted by his new love that he lose focus on his school work.  The acceptance is also unbelievable given how devoutly Armenian Orthodox Christian the family is. They drive an hour and a half to Connecticut each week to attend church.   I looked up the current doctrine of one  Armenian Orthodox church in Chicago and this is what I found regarding their views on the gays and lesbians. "As the preceding cited verses indicate, the position of the Bible, both Old and New Testament alike, is clearly opposed to homosexuality.  Homosexuals are on the Biblical list of sinners who deserve death; but through the power of a right relationship with Jesus Christ homosexuals, and all sinners can be cleansed of their sins."   Alek's parents are one hundred percent understanding, but I fear that those at the church they attend may not be.   There is no discussion of possible conflicts Alek might experience.  

By contrast this book does give the reader a good overview of the Armenian Genocide.   Alek's brother dates a girl who is later revealed to be part Turkish.  This fact causes the parents to totally shun the girl and ban their son having a relationship with her.   This fact gives even more implausibility to the parents accepting their Gay son whole hearted while abashing a son who dates a girl who is half Armenian and half Turkish.   

This book was upsetting in its departure from reality for most gay and lesbian youths in America.  The author writes beautifully with vivid imagery and good plot progression and organization; however, I think that for a coming of age, coming out story it would leave many straight and gay and lesbian young readers with a false impression of how one becomes aware of his/her sexuality and how easy it is to come out to one's family even in 2016.  

Here's a link to Rufus Wainwright singing the beautiful song from which this book is curiously named.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_YKc1fi86c