When You Call My Name by Tucker Shaw
Review of When You Call My Name by Tucker Shaw
“They say that memories fade with time but I don’t believe that’s true. You carry them with you like stones in your pocket. Sometimes when it’s quiet you take them out and roll them between your fingers. Then you put them back in your pocket, safe again. You don’t leave them behind.”
When You Call My Name by Tucker Shaw (2022). Published by Henry Holt and Co.
I found this book in December 2022, when I was combing book lists and recommendations to see what books I should add to my endless to read and keep on my radar.
I had no idea this book existed beforehand, despite being deep in this hole of reading and keeping on top of the newest publications, and what interested me the most was the context this book was set in: 1990 New York City, in the middle of the AIDS epidemic crisis.
For the two main characters introduced in this book, it’s a background event until it’s not, especially considering they’re two young gay high schoolers trying to make a life in the city.
Before I even go deep into this review, I will say this is one of the books that made me feel a lot of things, and I probably will end up purchasing a copy eventually for my personal collection. It’s a stunning book, and let’s dig into why.
Two young gay high schoolers find their coming-of-age in New York in the middle of the AIDS crisis.
The “chapters” in this book are actually splitting up the passage of time; it takes place towards the end of the school year, and both of the protagonists are thinking about their next moves and dreams. The narrative switches back and forth between the two boy’s stories, although they do end up eventually meeting and getting more involved in each other’s lives.
For the most part, though, the vast majority of the novel is spent in their own worlds. These inner worlds are rich and colored by their personalities, as Adam’s narrative is ridden with a love for film and its history, while Ben is up to date with all of the current fashions of the time period.
For the native New Yorker Adam, who loves film with a burning passion, he’s prepared to make his next step as a student at NYU in order to study cinema formally.
On the other hand, Ben has been kicked out of his Poughkeepsie home by his mother and shows up at his brother’s doorstep willing to make a new life for himself in New York City. He considers applying to FIT (my alma mater!) because he loves fashion with a passion, but ends up tagging along with his brother’s girlfriends to her photography shoots for magazines.
While Ben is wandering the streets of New York, looking more stereotypically gay than Adam and thus becoming a bigger target for the homophobic people who have their own issues, Adam meets a boy he desperately falls in love with: Callum.
Callum seems a bit older than Adam and works as an usher at Lincoln Center, as he loves music with a passion. His favorite movie is of course Amadeus, and despite their romance initially seeming like a slow burn, a kiss outside the 42nd Street NYPL reveals to Adam that Callum has AIDS. Callum begins playing the game of disappearing for a bit, leaving Adam very stressed, but it becomes increasingly obvious that Callum is very, very sick.
At the same time, while Ben is discovering himself further and trying his hand at the fashion and creative industries in New York, his surgeon brother, Gil, shows his concern in a callous and slightly homophobic way. He also tells Ben to try and reconcile with their mother, which Ben rejects at first, but ends up happening towards the end of the novel.
Ben first runs into Adam one night when he’s at the pier, as Adam, in the narrative right before it, lets out his frustration by just screaming into the night and empty, murky water. Ben tries to talk to him and see if he’s okay, but Adam flees, leaving Ben alone and he gets jumped by a bunch of men who think he’s gay because of his appearance. Naturally, this stresses Gil out as he ends up having to do the stitches.
Their path weave together again as Callum spends his final days in and out of the hospital. Adam, who has been hanging around his gay godfathers, finds Callum after he reaches out to him, and Callum is in the hospital where Gil works. Gil isn’t his doctor, but Adam has to deal with the frustration of not being a family member, as he is not allowed to know any of Callum’s medical information or status.
The two have some romantic, sweet moments together when Callum is in the hospital, and they return home briefly, only for Callum to pass away overnight. This sends Adam into a grief spiral where he just exists, with his best friend, Lily, that he had a falling out with returning from Greece and returning to comfort him.
There’s a lot of sadness packed into both of these young men’s stories, but also a lot of hope. Whether it’s Ben chasing after his dreams and carving a path he probably never would have been able to do if he didn’t leave home, or Adam’s godfathers telling him to accept his identity and caring for their community, there’s so much love and devotion in a time of horror and suffering.
Ben is more of a observer to the epidemic, as he lives on the fringes of the community he has just entered, while Adam is experiencing it firsthand because he has roots to the local community even before he started delving deeper into his sexuality.
Overall Thoughts
This is such a beautiful, messy novel. The characters are clearly flawed and young throughout, but the prose moves eloquently through their stories in a way that’s pretty rich.
The details end up making the novel come alive in a way that feels so real, like the author experienced these events firsthand (and I’m pretty sure Shaw did live in New York during the nineties), but also like a love letter to New York City and how one can feel free to be anyone they want in such a vast city.
However, it is quite the devastating novel as well, which readers should be aware of in the context of queer and gay stories in the nineties, especially in NYC. It doesn’t feel like YA, although it is, and I think it subverts the expectations of the genre and its tropes wonderfully. Give it a chance if you haven’t already.
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