Odd Boy Out

“Have you ever felt…different from everyone else? Like you didn’t belong anywhere?” Twelve-year-old Kiran Sharma asks in Rakesh Satyal’s poignant novel Blue Boy (out April 28). Indeed, in lily-white conservative Cincinnati in 1992, this closeted gay son of Indian immigrants — one who takes ballet class, wears his mom’s makeup and carries a pink backpack — is the ultimate outsider.

Satyal offers a touching tale of someone so desperate to understand his otherness he’ll cling to anything, even believing that he’s the reincarnation of the blue-skinned Hindi god Krishna. “He was blue and different but had no explanation of why,” says Kiran. “I am so different from everyone, and yet there doesn’t seem to be an explanation of my oddity either.”

What makes Blue Boy stand out from other gay coming-of-age novels is Kiran’s pluck. Though his fellow sixth grade classmates harass him and fellow Indian-American kids call him “fag,” Kiran shows an amusing shrewdness beyond his years. When he nearly burns his school down after an accident in the art room, he happily lets two of his tormenters take the fall. Sure, Kiran may be marginalized, but don’t mess with this flamer.  


Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal will be available April 28 from Kensington Books.