Nerds Heart YA - First Round Review: What They Always Tell Us - Martin Wilson

‘What They Always Tell Us’ begins one of the main characters, Alex, has done something that makes all his friends avoid him. In a moment of severe depression Alex drank a bottle of Pine-sol at a party. He woke up to a world that had branded him a suicidal freak, where all his friends, including his own brother James, had deserted him. Alex wanders through his high school hallways alone, past suicidal attempts but miserable.

His brother James isn’t doing much better. In his senior year and ready to graduate James feels the small town of Tuscaloosa closing in on him. The parties he goes to are always the same, he doesn’t care about the girls he sleeps with and he feels himself drifting away from his best friends who think attending Alabama university will be the best thing in the world. At the beginning of the novel James sleeps later, smoke more pot and pulls away from familiar things. His state of apathy and irritation mirrors the way he remembers Alex in the months before he tried to commit suicide. He can’t even talk to his brother about any of this because he and Alex have been so far apart since Alex tried to take his own life.

This is a YA novel so the grey existence and damaged relationship of the two brothers is set to be transformed. When Alex starts running again he finds a supportive training partner and friend in one of James’ best friends Nathan. Running makes Alex feel more confident and powerful; it also helps him to make friends as he gains a spot on the cross country team. He also discovers that Nathan wants to be more than his friend and they begin a secret relationship, which makes Alex the happiest he’s been in a long time. At the same time James and Alex begin to repair their relationship as they bond over a mystery about Henry, the odd little boy next door. James reignites a friendship with an ex-girlfriend, Claire, who is as focused as he is and begins to feel a reconnection with his brother. Both of these growing friendships help keep him on track during his last year in his hometown.

In ‘What They Always Tell Us’ Martin Wilson has created a novel that answers YA readers fervent demands for novels containing sound politics, but also real heart and soul. Wilson’s story focuses on a white family, but is set in a community that contains racial diversity. The book features a happy, mixed race relationship (Nathan is part Indian, part British, part American) which is also a happy, gay relationship. However it is not a preachy novel, or a novel built on idealism, it is a novel that strives to be both positive and realistic at the same time. By including negative realistic elements like the fact that Alex and Nathan have to hide their relationship because as Nathan says, being gay is ‘not cool’ in such a small, southern town, Wilson makes the positive elements that he includes, like the lack of shame the boys feel about their relationship, seem realistic too. By doing this Wilson creates a version of our world which gay teens can identify with and which shows how an imperfect world can still offer acceptance, happiness and inclusion. Despite this being Alex’s first relationship with a man the novel is refreshingly free of shame and angst, in fact Alex accepts his sexuality right from the beginning. This is not something I’ve personally seen before in a YA novel and it was wonderful to see an alternative reaction from a character experiencing their first homosexual feelings.

The positive social messages of this book are complemented well by the soft, thudding heart Wilson has invested his novel with. Wilson’s primary goal seems to be to make his characters happy, and hope that it entertains his readers. The quiet, slow paced tone of the novel’s sentences seem to reflect how much he cares about his main characters as no one is rushed to a conclusion and no drama is pushed into their lives. Using a slower pace also matches Alex and James’ journeys as they begin the novel raw and tired, then warily begin to recover. Readers who prefer more action may find this novel a little too quiet, but I appreciated reading a YA novel which took it’s time and didn’t have me skipping through because I was being driven towards a dramatic conclusion.

There are some problems with ‘What They Always Tell Us’. James and Alex’s strange, ten year old neighbour Henry is first introduced to give Alex someone to relate to. Henry is engaging, odd, sweet and a fun addition to the novel. Later as the brothers bond over a mystery about Henry and his mom, Henry’s personality seems to matter less and Henry becomes a narrative tool, rather than a character. The mystery is wrapped up with a solution that is sensible, but also obvious, which makes the whole mystery plotline seem a little clumsy and unimportant in its own right.

Several of the secondary characters also suffer from lack of development because their relationships with the brothers and the way they help them heal is given more focus than their own personalities. Female characters, like Claire and Alice, often lose their own personalities as a consequence of being portrayed through the brother’s eyes. However, as the book is told in alternating chapters, looking primarily at the brothers this is understandable. It would probably have been eliminated if the book had been longer and Wilson had had more space for character development.

‘What They Always Tell Us’ would be a great novel to contrast with P E Ryan’s ‘Saints of Augustine’. It has many similarities but is written with entirely different pacing and in a much quieter way. Fluid, positive and heartfelt it’s going to be a hard novel to beat.

Coming up:

My review of ‘Last Exit to Normal’ by Michael Harmon

Find out which book will move into the next round of Nerds Heart YA and face off with Valentina’s choice ‘My Most Excellent Year’.


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