One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel Published by Scribner on March 14th 2017
Genres: General Fiction
Pages: 176
Format: eBook
Source: NetGalley & Scribner
The three of them—a twelve-year-old boy, his older brother, their father—have won the war: the father’s term for his bitter divorce and custody battle. They leave their Kansas home and drive through the night to Albuquerque, eager to begin again, united by the thrilling possibility of carving out a new life together. The boys go to school, join basketball teams, make friends. Meanwhile their father works from home, smoking cheap cigars to hide another smell. But soon the little missteps—the dead-eyed absentmindedness, the late night noises, the comings and goings of increasingly odd characters—become sinister, and the boys find themselves watching their father change, grow erratic, then violent.
**Special thanks to NetGalley & Scribner for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
What happens when their shelter and supposedly safe harbor becomes their nightmare? A question posed by Daniel Magariel in his debut novel, One of the Boys.
A very dominating self-centered father and a weak submissive mother can be the combination to hell for their two boys. After a marriage that witnessed a lot of abuse towards the mother, the father is willing to do everything to take the boys away from her only to torment her and deny her financial support. He calls the divorce The War, revealing his hostile spirit. He’s willing to use his two boys even if that meant teaching them hostility and deceit. The two boys perceiving their father as their role model have no choice but to trust him.
In a heart wrenching book, Daniel Magariel brings the story of the two boys through the eyes of the younger one. And how painful can it be to read the boy’s words and realize the contradiction between his innocence and the cruelty surrounding him. As a little boy, all his heart can hold is love. He loves his father to the extent of hating his mother sometimes only to assure himself that he is on his father’s team. How sad can be such a brief sentence that describes a twisted upbringing.
The cover of the book is genius. It’s the best summary of the book. The skewed window is the little boy’s window to life. It’s as if he’s watching life through his skewed father. And through that window he sees only his utmost goal, to be one of the boys. Of course the boys are the three of them, the father and the two boys. It’s in this mere pledge and need for belonging that we feel the greatest agony.
The father is a very skewed and deceitful person. He’s ashamed of nothing. He can push the boys to the limit to fulfill his whims and needs. It is heart aching how the little boy adores his father to the limit that he agrees to accuse his mother of abusing her own child … he pretends falsely to be beaten by his mother.. Just to satisfy the sick father. Just to be one of the boys.
As I read through the pages, I felt my grief building. How painful was it to see the kid finding justifications for his father’s ill doings, hoping to be one of the boys. As I read about their everyday life through the eyes of the younger kid, I felt I was suffocating. Too much abuse. Mental and psychological abuse more than physical abuse. I felt the boys were living like middle aged desperate men burdened by all their father’s requests instead of being two energetic and hopeful kids. Bearing the burden of their parents’ failures, the bad choices and the sick characters. And with no one to help, they had a deep belief that they only had each other.
This book was thought provoking. Actually it was genius in its simplicity. Delivering a very sharp message in just 176 pages. Our kids are the most precious gift, and more precious is their love for us. It’s our responsibility to care for them and give them the happy childhood they deserve.
About Daniel Magariel
Daniel Magariel is a fiction writer from Kansas City. He has a BA from Columbia University, as well as an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Fellow. He has lived in Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Florida, Colorado, and Hawaii. He currently lives in New York with his wife. One of the Boys is his first novel.