OUR BEAUTIFUL BOYS, by Sameer Pandya
From the first page of Sameer Pandya’s timely and timeless new novel, “Our Beautiful Boys,” we’re dropped into a series of contradictions. We’re introduced to a town that’s described as “nothing extraordinary,” but then ushered to a trio of caves cloaked in mystery and lore. We’re told these caves are very old, but then we focus in on contemporary dramas. Thus, the tone is set — here is a novel that carefully plays with assumptions, expectations and subversions.
At the center of the novel is Vikram Shastri, an Indian American 11th grader living in Southern California, who is recruited for his high school’s football team. Vikram’s parents, Gita and Guatam, are none too thrilled — American football is an undeniably violent sport. And as the family’s cherished photo of Vikram’s great-grandfather marching with the Mahatma Gandhi illustrates, violence of any type is not the Shastri way.
But Vikram wants to play. As he pursues the sport, he finds himself thrust into a wildly unexpected alliance with two other boys: Diego Cruz, an 11th grader of Latin American descent who, pressured by his single mother, plays in the hopes that football will land him a full ride to college; and MJ Berringer, the Yale-bound senior quarterback who is actively wrestling with the privilege inherent in being white and wealthy.
As it turns out, all three boys have unpleasant histories with another kid around school: a troubled outcast named Stanley Kincaid. And those unpleasant histories come to the fore one fateful night. Looking to celebrate a football victory, Vikram, Diego and MJ attend a party at an abandoned house in the hills outside their town, and while exploring the aforementioned caves, which are nearby, they have a physical altercation with Stanley. After the fight, they flee the scene, and when Stanley finally emerges sometime later, the boys see that he’s terribly hurt, with wounds that far exceed what the boys say they inflicted. Stanley claims that one of the three boys returned alone and is responsible for the most severe of his injuries, though he’s not sure which one because it was dark and he was intoxicated. And with that, we’re thrust into a series of events that force the characters, their parents and the reader to grapple with the ways the boys’ different backgrounds impact their experience of being accused of wrongdoing.
Is this a book about race relations? Absolutely and from multiple directions. It’s also a book about class. And immigration. And opportunism. And gender. And marriage. And parenthood. And America.
These are big, familiar topics, but Pandya’s approach to unpacking them stands out. First, it’s not Black and white (racially) nor black and white (morally). Racially, with its cast of Latino and Indian characters, the book urges us to reckon with the ways nonwhite Americans view and engage with one another. And morally, the novel doesn’t offer clear or easy answers. Pandya presents flawed but understandable people trying to navigate a murky situation with high stakes: the futures of these boys. The second thing that stands out is Pandya’s gorgeous yet understated storytelling. The book’s tone highlights that the struggles in “Our Beautiful Boys” are not exceptional dilemmas but rather uncomfortably common situations.
Above all else, “Our Beautiful Boys” is a book about the lies we knowingly or unwittingly tell ourselves. This is a book that highlights how we internalize and project certain perceptions, and what we’re willing to do and say so we can feel accepted.
In this way, the three caves, as stark and mysterious as ever, are not just a setting but also a metaphor. Vikram, Diego and MJ are just as opaque as those rocky tunnels; they haven’t even begun to explore the depths of who they are. I was reminded with every twist and turn in this story — and they are plentiful — that each of us is a cave of our own.
OUR BEAUTIFUL BOYS | By Sameer Pandya | Ballantine | 386 pp. | $30
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