What I Know Now

In 1957 California, Dave finds himself facing many struggles as he tries to deal with his homosexuality in a time when it was far from appropriate to discuss one's sexual feelings, while coping with the breakdown of his family and the loss he feels due to his father's absence from his home.

Grade 7 Up. It's the summer of 1957 in Stockton, CA, and 14-year-old Dave is taken along as his mother leaves her adulterous and violent husband and moves into her family home. This isn't really a story about divorce though. It is a multilayered look at a young man's journey toward maturity molded not only by his relationships with his unaffectionate father and unavailable older brother, but also by his new friendship with Gene Tole, a man whom his mother hires to do some landscaping. For most of the story, Dave doesn't realize that Gene is gay and, though the narrative includes images from Dave's erotic daydreaming and his scouring of Madame Bovary for the sex scenes, readers become aware of the boy's sexual preference as slowly as the character himself. This is masterful on the part of the author as it allows Dave to work through many variations of how men interact with one another. At one point, Dave wishes Gene were his father. He knows he loves Gene and in the end this love is both confusing and accepted by Dave, who is able to assimilate the surprise of Gene's sexual orientation without having to reject his relationship with him. This is a well-told story that depicts a gay protagonist as a real person who is able to provide a positive male role model for a young man during a transitional period in his life.?Melissa Gross, Beverly Hills Public Library,
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The characters are the highlight of this thoughtful coming-of-age story from Larson (Mariposa, 1996, not reviewed). Amid the relative innocence of the summer of 1957, Dave's life is uprooted by his parents' separation. Dave, 14, and his mother move into her childhood home while his older brother, Brad, stays behind at the ranch to help their father with the crops. Dave is overwhelmed by the changes and the division of his family, and doesn't know how he'll get through the summer. Then his mother hires Gene Tole to build a garden as part of her ongoing project to spruce up the old house. Gene involves Dave as his helper, and although Dave doesn't recognize it at the time, he falls in love with Gene. The garden is a powerful symbol in this well-crafted novel. Together, Dave and Gene build and bond while Dave grows and heals. Readers know that Dave's budding maturity will see him through after he learns Gene is gay. The characters shine: impressionable, sensitive Dave; gentle, caring Gene; Dave's vulnerable but determined mother. The relationships are built slowly and credibly, in evocative passages that grandly conjure the California countryside, and tenderly depict the nuances of human understanding and emotion. (Fiction 12+) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 9^-12. Like two other impressive new YA coming-of-age stories, Werbsa's Whistle Me Home and Kerr's "Hello," I Lied , this beautifully written first novel is about a teenager in love and confused about who he is. At 14, Dave Ryan is coping with his parents' separation. He is living with his mother, who is trying to build a new life in an old country place near Stockton, California. She hires Gene Tole to help her renew a garden, and he becomes Dave's mentor and guide, the father figure Dave loves and would like to grow up to be. What teenager wouldn't be in love with Gene? There is an Edenic quality to the garden they make together. Not only is Gene wise, handsome, sensitive, sophisticated, affectionate, and accomplished, but he is also strong enough to subdue Dave's abusive father in a fight and to be forgiving about it. In some ways this reads like an adult novel, with its languorous pace, its 1950s setting, and also its candid detail about childhood sexuality (see "YA Talk" for a discussion of the overlap between YA and adult books). The prose is plain and beautiful in its physical particulars. Whether Gene is driving Dave to the city lights, taking him skinny-dipping, or showing him how to plant a tree and build a wall, the metaphor grows right out of the things they do. Dave's first-person voice gets exactly right the teenager's hurt, excitement, and longing. When he discovers at the end that Gene is gay, there is a sense not of closure but of opening out: Dave knows he is confused, but he knows he loves Gene and will "figure love out" and live by the kind that is right for him. Hazel Rochman