Reception Ĭlare Calvet of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Nightlife radio program chose Golden Boy as Book of the Week, 'Golden Boy' is an amazing coming of age story. When a childhood friend abuses his trust in a horrific way, the family starts to unravel and, ultimately, seek to try to come to terms with its secrets. A family with secrets, because Max is intersex. Max Walker is a golden boy: athletic, attractive and intelligent, from a well to do family. Tarttelin describes Lianne Simon's Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite, and discussions with gender fluid people on Tumblr, as important influences. I wanted Golden Boy to take place in a town that readers could see as their own town'. She deliberately placed her protagonist within an ''average' community and a loving family', saying, 'I often feel characters with alternative genders and sexualities are treated as outsiders in art, when in fact they are us, and they belong inside our communities. Interviewed at Goodreads, Tarttelin says, 'I could explore gender through the eyes of someone who had no need to define themselves as either male or female, but was pressured to do so by their family and community'. Nevertheless, she argues that gender determines 'whether you are physically intimidating vs. She is concerned that some mainstream analysis of trans children exhibits a narrow world view and limited expectations of gender roles. In discussion with Interview Magazine, Tarttelin comments that gender is arbitrary, but 'a lot of it is socially constructed'. Tarttelin has described how she explores intersex to look at gender roles, expressing the view that, 'I don't particularly think men and women are very different'. It was described as a 'dazzling debut' by Oprah's Book Club. Golden Boy is the second novel by Abigail Tarttelin, published in 2013 about an intersex teenager, Max, and his family. Print ( Paperback and Hardback) and E-book

Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin