Two young men, one white and one black, are coping with life shattering events in the only ways they can. For Finley, basketball has been his life-saver; he lives in a run down neighborhood ruled by drug violence, the Irish mafia, and racially charged conflict. Emotionally and verbally reserved since his early childhood, Finley survives high school by keeping his head down, trusting his girlfriend Erin and Coach, and playing basketball. When Finley puts on his #21 jersey, he becomes another person: focused, confident, determined, and whole. When Coach asks him to spend time with Russ, a rising basketball star whose parents have been murdered and who will be attending their high school, Finley does what is asked of him without question.
But Russell’s coping mechanism is not what Finley expected: Russ seems to believe that he’s Boy21 – taken from his former jersey number – an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to study human emotions. He refuses to play basketball, interact in more than monosyllables, and is convinced his parents are coming from outer space to take him away. Coach wants Finley to help get Russ to go out for the school’s basketball team, believing that the organization, teamwork, and play of the sport will help bring Russ back from the brink,as well as ensure the school wins the state championship. As the pressures of the season, the politics of the neighborhood, and the secrets in Finley’s past wear on him, he finds it harder and harder to please everyone and even find the focus on the court he used to have. When tragedy strikes close to home, Finley is faced with both confronting long-kept, painful secrets and hard choices about what he wants his future to be.
Matthew Quick’s Boy21 is a story that explores a lot of emotional territory in a quiet and honest way. Both Finley and Russ connect on many levels and their shared struggles, isolation, and eventual emergence through their pain is striking in its simplicity, humanity, and optimism.
- Posted by Cori