All American Boy

by William J. Mann

Book Overview

For years the handsome actor Wally Day has made denial his own particular art form. But now, faced by a call from his mother who he hasn't seen in more than 10 years, Wally must confron the reasons he left his hometown of Brown's Mill in a cloud of anger, shame and guilt. But Wally isn;t the only one facing their past - his mother, Regina, finds her own world unravelling around her. As Wally untangles the dark side of his all-American family he has...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0758203284
• ISBN13: 9780758203281
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

All American Boy, an all-American family

Wally Day was the All American Boy in Brown's Mill. He had the stellar grades, good behavior and the title: the local paper wrote an article on him being voted the All American Boy in town. But that all changed when he fell in love with 30something old Zandy who ended up in jail because of Wally's statements to the police. Everyone in this small pastoral town knew of the affair and its consequences. Twenty years later, Wally, an actor, returns home when his mother calls him, believing she's losing her mind, thinking she killed his cousin Kyle. But when Wally returns, he is faced not only with the ghosts of his past but those of his present. He wants to face Zandy and apologize for sending him to jail while feeling obligated to help his emotionally-disturbed mom sort herself out and find his missing cousin. Wally is the center of an emotional spider web in this novel. The book revolves around his estranged relationship with his mother Regina; his long-ago first love with Zandy; his maternal love for his transexual guardian Miss Aletha; his all too familiar affections for a sixteen year-old Dee whom Miss Aletha cares for; and Wally's lack of love from his abusive and deceased military father. It's a well-told, complex and layered story, often told through Regina's stream of consciousness. A week's worth of time takes the reader on a time-traveling journey through Wally's childhood during the Saturday Night Fever days and his mother's dreams of being a singer with her sister Rocky during the 1950s. As I read this, I couldn't help but think the story was about love. Regina wants to be loved. Wally still yearns to be loved again the way Zandy showed him. Dee wants to experience what Wally felt for Zandy in some way, shape or form. Miss Aletha loves unconditionally by taking in troubled gay youth who aren't accepted in their own home but she loved with all her heart her partner who "has disappeared." And I couldn't help but think the book was also about dreams and what happens when they're not realized. Regina wanted to be a singer but came home from the bright lights of the big city but daydreams of those days often. Wally leaves Brown's Mill to pursue acting and lives out his dream although he's not as successful as he'd like to be. Dee dreams of leaving the small town and seems to want to follow in Wally's path. Although this was a dark story, it was written with power. It's definitely a page turner. It has an echo of the 1996 movie Dolores Claiborne in that an adult child returns to the New England home to help an emotional mother who seems to be thrust in the middle of a police investigation. It was hard to put this book down, especially once you meet the All American Boy and his all American family. Johnny Diaz, author of Boston Boys Club

A dark and tragic departure for Mann

What a change of pace this novel is from his circuit part boys shennanigans. This is a much more complex, dark and heartbreaking tale of a family - mostly mother and son - coming to terms with their demons and their mistakes in life. The mother's story and background unfolds as the main character moves the the present trying to figure out what he wants and why he's returned home after a call from his mother. Mom's background unfolds as an aching and epically tragic life. The son - really, has not fallen far from that tree. Not a happy, carefree story, but a haunting and moving one. Actually, a welcome change from his last novel.

Coming Home Never Hurt More..I'm Hooked

While I found this book a difficult, dark read at times, I also could not put it down. I was hooked from the first sentence. Mann's ability to take us to the depths of a painful childhood is riveting, masterful and powerful. A book that takes us to the humanity within all of us. Mann deals with many difficult topics...from emotional and physical child abuse, to intergenerational sex and possible murder. It is his finely detailed descriptions that were especially engaging and yet, difficult to read. I could not remove myself from the story, making it all so intense. I was riveted and read the book through the night. I had many dreams that night which dealt with the many truths, scenarios and possible meaning of the story. Mann doesn't tell you how to interpret his character's truth. He leads you to their soul and the rest is up to you. Go there...now! A haunting, powerful inspiring read. Very different from his other wonderful novels, but worth the soulful inquiry. I am still wondering about Regina and Wally. I pray Mann will bring them to his readers again.

"I need to do what I came here for and then get back to the city"

William J. Mann's novels are right at the cutting edge, of literary quality and creativity. His works continue to pack a powerful emotional punch, and are just as much an in-depth exploration of gender roles and sexual identities, as they are domestic sagas that examine the notion of the modern gay sensibility. In All American Boy, Mann expands on the themes of his earlier novels, continuing his journey into the nature of forgiveness, rage, and what it really means to love and be loved. Wally Day, the central protagonist in All American Boy, was once perhaps the archetype of the "American boy," but his downfall was swift and dramatic, and his eventual decent into shame, ignominy, and exile comes at a terrible price. After several years of living in the big city, Wally returns to his hometown of Brown's Mill that is full of the "old tenant housing, row houses built by factory owners for their immigrant workers." Through the abandoned factories he drives, where he finally ends up in the cul-de-sac, the ranch house where he grew up, with the American flag out the front. His mother, Regina is an aging widower, who is steadily deteriorating both physically and mentally. She begs him to come home, realizing that she probably needs him now more than ever. Regina's life has been fraught with unhappiness, loneliness, and disappointment. Her career as a singing star was derailed by the mistakes of her sister Rocky, and then she was thrust into a miss-matched and violent marriage to a brutal and non-caring military man. Life is beginning to catch up with the poor, lonely, and seemingly senile old woman. Her world is unraveling, and plagued with strange, confusing memories of a murder that may or may not have occurred, she turns to the son she barely knows for help. But Walter has remained emotionally distant from his mother. Once upon a time, Wally loved his mother, "more than anything else in his life he loved how soft she was, and how blonde." But Wally realizes that while Brown's Mill may not have changed, and while his mother might not have changed, one important thing had. Once Wally had known all of Brown's Mills secrets. He knew what was hidden where, "which bodies might be found in whatever closet." While Regina battles her own demons, Wally continues to be haunted by the death of Ned. Ned was Wally's one true love, who died of AIDS seven years ago. And while Wally refuses to let go of the hurt, he recalls with fondness, his life as a teenager in Brown's Mill - a life that made him the man he is today. Realizing that he was attracted to men from an early age, Wally sought solace down in the projects of Dog Town, a rambling working class estate, where he met the kindly Miss Aletha - a tall man-woman, who wore a blond wig and purple mascara, and who led a slow paced existence, leisurely strolling through life. When scandal eventually engulfs Wally's family, culminating with his father disowning him, Aletha's group of misfit friends

A tough book to read, but worthwhile ...

The back of the dust jacket on Mann's latest novel contain raves about his previous two novels, which dealt mostly with the stereotypical gay male cruising range of casual sex, bars, baths, drugs and circuit parties. Those expecting more of the same in "All American Boy" are in for a rude awakening. "All American Boy" is a skillful tapestry of characterizations surrounding the lead character, Walter, his dysfunctional birth family, the family's own secrets, and regrets concerning the other adults in his life, including Miss Aletha (the transexual who raised him after he ran away from his parents' home), Zandy (the older man to whom he willingly gave his virginity in his early teens, but was later pressured to turn him in to the authorities, resulting in his being sent to prison) and boyhood acquaintances. He travels back to his small home town of Browns Mill, now an unemployed actor who is far from the "All American Boy" the town named him in his youth. Much of the story is told in a kind of stream-of-consciousness manner that mimics the thought pattern of Walter's now senile mother, who still has daytime illusions of her dead husband and sister being alive, violent dellusions of killing those who have hurt her in the past, mixed with flashbacks from her own childhood (She had run away with her sister to sing in big city taverns) and of various stages of Walter's boyhood. It's not easy to follow, and more than a bit bleak and depressing, but realistically and emotionally tells the story of a boyhood lost and a life filled with regrets, which he doesn't know how to repair.