2009 Lambda Literary Award Winner: Gay Debut Fiction
Meet Cliffy Douglas, the 13-year-old narrator of Finlater, a coming-of-age love story set in racially-charged 1970s Cincinnati. First day of school, the bright champion speller from the Findlater Gardens Projects is promoted over seventh grade. In eight-grade algebra class, he is seated beside Noah Baumgarten, and the "Nigger and Jew" are drawn to each other, not least because they are wearing identical striped shirts. Children of their time, segregated by neighborhood, opportunity and skin color, neither boy has ever had a friend like the other. Cliffy is soon convinced that he wants to be Jewish, and Noah a black soul brother, to more fully fit into each other's lives. Deep complexities become apparent. As the two chum around the roiling city, their fantasies collide with reality, and both boys grapple for meaning and clarity beyond the very narrow ideas each has of the other's world. But what ultimately binds the boys is the difficulty each faces at home. Cliffy's world is turned upside down by the sudden reappearance of his dad, while Noah falls into desperation as he tries to save his father from a losing battle with mental illness. Both boys, to an overwhelming degree, are helpless in the face of events overpowering their childhoods, and find in each other refuge from the debris of crumbling families and shifting circumstances. They find first love – its sweetness, and bitterness too. The boys' trajectory is Cincinnati's as well. In many ways, their troubled lives mirror the – city's problems – its recalcitrance and inability to adapt to change for which there is a moral mandate, but only spineless civic will. Yet the boys learn a lesson the city blithely ignores even to this day: how to love in the midst of so much senseless hatred, and the ruins of indifference.
"Finlater" is quite simply an amazing book that deals with real people in real situations. It is beautifully written and extremely sensitive. It affected me in ways few other books have. Perhaps this is because of what I said earlier about the reality of the characters and plot.
Cliffy is a thirteen year old black sensitive kid from a low-income family in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is entering the eight grade after having great success in a spelling bee where the only word he misspelled was the name of the housing project where he lived, The Findlater, and that was because he always heard it pronounced as "Finlater". His home life is somewhat sad--his brothers are sexually active and they cause trouble; his mother works hard to take care of the family. His father has recently returned home and doesn't do much aside from drinking and lounging around the house. Nevertheless Cliffy Douglas loves his mother and is devoted to her.
When Cliffy starts school, his desk is near Noah Baumgerten's. Noah is a young Jewish student and the two boys become fast friends. The boys both belong to minority groups and they receive the terrible nicknames of "Jew" and
"Nigger". As the boys get to know each other, they secretly wish that they could change home lives. Cliffy wants to have a loving home like Noah's and Noah wants to be a "soul brother". The friends spend all of their free time together and they explore their sexualities and bodies. Eventually the boys' families also meet and the boys begin to explore the secrets of each family and they study their fathers whose own lives greatly influence the boys' lives. The two boys manage to find their own world in which their pasts are blocked out and they are allowed to live and love. This is where the story ends and we are left to finish the book in the way that we want and for me this was a big plus as I became part of the plot. This is a love story with a lot of emotion. It could easily become a book for young adult readers but I see it as a book for all ages as it has so much to say about so many things. It is beautifully and eloquently written and physically beautiful to look at.
This is a book that will not easily be forgotten and when Cliffy says that the only thing to be ashamed of is being ashamed, he won my heart.
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