Boys

by Roger Newman

Overview

". . . more than a great read; it is a source of hope." -John Sexton, New York Times bestselling author of Baseball as a Road to God and president emeritus of New York University

". . . a dynamic Southern story that teaches hard but redemptive truths." -Jason Ryan, author of Swamp Kings: The Story of the Murdaugh Family of South Carolina and a Century of Backwoods Power

". . . courageously offers a narrative grounded in honor and the indelible bonds that transcend the accidents of birth, place, and skin color." -Greg Fields, author of The Bright Freight of Memory and PEN/Faulkner Award nominee

Brotherhood is more than skin-deep.

After Alex's family is killed by the Ku Klux Klan during the Great Depression, he takes refuge in the barn of a nearby dairy farm. The family that owns the dairy, including their young son Pete, take in Alex and raise the boys together. Pete and Alex consider themselves brothers and together they navigate the Jim Crow racial intolerance of the rural South, a challenge experienced differently because Pete is White and Alex is Black.

Anticipating European war, Pete and Alex join a segregated US Army. The brothers discover their own identities amid the crucible of battle, leading them to separate for many years as they continue their careers in the Army. They finally reunite at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1969. Confronting escalating racial and civilian hostility in response to the Civil Rights and antiwar movements, Alex must find those responsible for the brutal off-base beating of Pete. He must also reengage with his childhood and what it means to be a Black man with a White brother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798888245699
Publisher:	Koehler Books
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	334
Sales rank:	122,706
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Roger Newman is the author of a series of medical thrillers, Occam's Razor, Two Drifters, and What Becomes, and the historical fiction novel Will O' the Wisp: Madness, War, and Recompense. Dr. Newman is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, specializing in the care of women with multiple gestations. He has authored almost two hundred scientific papers, a dozen book chapters, and the award-winning and bestselling When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads; Fourth Edition. He served as the national president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and was voted by his peers as one of the "Best Doctors in America" for thirty consecutive years. He and his wife, Diane, live on the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

01/13/2025

Newman’s latest historical fiction, after Will O’ the Wisp, follows the intertwined lives of Pete and Alex, two brothers bound not by blood but by circumstance, amid the harsh realities of mid-20th-century America. When the Barnes family discovers Alex—a young Black orphan—hiding in their North Carolina dairy barn, they take him in—not from kindness, but because they need an extra hand on the farm. As Alex grows, he’s treated like an outsider by most of the family and society at large, though Pete—the second to youngest Barnes and Alex’s same age—considers him a brother. As the boys grow, their separate narratives unfold, powered by themes of racism, identity, and resilience.

Newman’s tale of brotherhood captures the deep bond between Pete and Alex—a bond that is tested as their journey expands. They attend segregated schools, each learning vastly different histories, with Pete steeped in white narratives while Alex soaks in the knowledge of his Cherokee teacher. Alex’s journey to discover his self-worth and place in the world is both heart-wrenching and inspiring, and Pete’s love for him offers a glimpse of hope in a story otherwise rife with challenges. Their odyssey spans pivotal moments in history, from the Great Depression and Second World War to the Vietnam War, highlighting the impact of these events on their relationship, as the boys dream of escape by enlisting in the army, only to confront the harsh inequalities of race even while serving their country.

Vivid descriptions of rural life, military service, and racial tension add rich layers to Newman’s narrative, immersing readers in the characters’ struggles and triumphs while exploring war trauma, systemic discrimination, and gentle self-discovery amid the harsh cruelty of their world. Boys is a complex dive into human connection, an ode to finding strength in adversity, the enduring scars of racism, and the power of love and loyalty.

Takeaway: Two men raised as brothers confront racism in mid-20th-century America.

Comparable Titles: Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age.

Production grades Cover: B+ Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: B+

BookLife Reviews

2025-01-06
In Newman’s historical novel, a Great Depression–era Black youth loseshis family to racial violence and is raised by a white family in the South.

Pete Barnes finds a terrified young Black boy named Alex Broadnax—shivering from the cold and covered in blood—hiding in his father’s milk barn in Leakesville, North Carolina. Alex witnessed the murder of his entire family by the Ku Klux Klan and is now on the run. Poppa Barnes, despite his unabashed racism, takes Alex in and puts him to work, and he grows up side by side with Pete, working the farm and attending school (albeit a segregated one for Black children). Pete quickly comes to love Alex and sees him as another brother, but Alex, by far the more thoughtful of the two, never loses sight of the distance between himself and his adopted family, a bitter awareness movingly captured by the author: “I was never a son to Poppa. Every night at dinner we thanked God for his enveloping love, but come Sunday, it was clear that love did not extend to me.” Immediately after graduating high school, both boys join the army and are sent to Europe to fight in World War II. While there, Alex is stung by the military’s refusal to acknowledge his heroism and Pete wrestles with his resentment toward his father and the Baptist faith he tries to abandon. The relationship between Alex and Pete is a profoundly complex one and is rendered with impressive subtlety by Newman, who admirably refuses any facile sentimentality. Alex is a particularly memorable protagonist—it is both fascinating and heartbreaking to see how he manages to maintain both gratitude and anger in his heart in equal measure. The novel is affecting but not cloyingly manipulative, an increasingly rare accomplishment in the field of contemporary literature.

A powerful and nuanced novel about racial tensions in 20th-century America.

Kirkus Reviews