Golden Boy: What happens when a prominent family tries to hide the fact that their son is both male and female? A story fit for tabloids.

The point of the irrevocable, and those who either walk past it willingly or are dragged by the betrayal of another, all make for a good story. In Golden Boy that line is crossed early on, though I won't say how exactly because that will ruin it. The rest of the novel shows the quiet, ebullient free-fall of intersex Max and his mother Karen; the fierce, and persistent war-cries of his ten-year old brother, Daniel, who wants (and deserves) to be taken seriously; and the unwavering acceptance of his father, Steve. You see, Max is special: an over-achieving, angelically good-looking star-athlete who is at once both male and female, and yet, neither as well. He is what we no longer in polite society call, a hermaphrodite.

You can't help but imagine Abigail Tarttelin thinking up the story: Pupils dilated with anticipation of the chaos that would ensue after giving two publicly prominent figures an intersex love-child. Yet, there is a tenderness to Tarttelin's writing. She is not a Pan, God of Mischief. She's more like the grown-up version of a child who likes to smash her toys and see how they come apart. Tarttelin, unlike a precocious brat surrounded by dismembered dinosaurs, knows how to put things back together and then some.

Secrets are revealed and the characters stretch desperately like rubber bands and snap back, often with understanding, and often with more questions than answers. The largest question being, is being normal really worth it? In exploring this idea, we come to understand the difference between behaving normally, and seeming normal to those looking in (which, in the Walkers' case, is the whole damn town). The definition of normal is turned and tossed like a raw pizza dough. You'll find that as Max learns more about his body (with the help of the underplayed Dr. Archie Verma) both the definition of normalcy and very value of mimicking those around him ebb and flow. Being normal may take more energy than he realizes, and giving up on that endeavor might really be the courageous effort of loving his whole self, the leap of acceptance he needs to survive.

If anything, this book is a lesson in reacting to the idea that something is "wrong" with you. With a remarkable wisdom, Tarttelin asks all the questions for us and answers them only so much as to leave room for our sense of wonder to still buzz in the margins. Like a true British novelist, she abides by the law that, like the dead, secrets will up like weeds in the garden, and when they do sprout, havoc will reek. That is, until someone throws tidiness to the wind and digs elbow deep to take care of it.

(Side note: while reading this, I put together that "hermaphrodite" is the marriage of Hermes, and Aphrodite, two gods who I'm pretty sure banged and as a result, conceived a child called Hermaphroditos. Neat, huh?)

4 out of 5 stars