Colleen Mondor Reviews Fraternity by Andy Mientus
Fraternity, Andy Mientus (Amulet 978-1-4197-5470-8, $19.99, 354pp, hc) September 2022. Cover by Allison Colpoys.
As Andy Mientus’s gripping novel Fraternity opens, Zachary “Zooey” Orson Jr. has just transferred to the elite Blackfriars School for Boys. Fleeing a scandal from his previous high school, Zooey is doing his best to look and act like the kid that he is “supposed” to be and not a teenage boy attracted to other teenage boys. It is the fall of 1991, and being gay is not a possibility, not in the midst of the AIDS crisis, not with all the casual ways in which you can be hurt in the hallways, locker rooms, and classrooms of your new school if you are different, not when you are trying to make your thoroughly conventional father happy. Zooey is a runner and he stands out on the field, which brings him a bully’s attention, and in that altercation Zooey doesn’t back down. That makes him a target, and if you have a secret like he does, it can mean the kind of trouble is coming that is tough to survive.
Blackfriars has its own secret, though: a gay club that has existed for decades where students can be safe. The Vicious Circle extends an invitation and Zooey can’t resist. During a wild and wonderful night of laughter, dancing, and witty banter, (the club name was chosen for a reason), he especially bonds with Daniel, Leo, and Steven. The bully continues to threaten, so his new friends decide it is time to do something and use a book of spells they found previously while on a late night foray in the headmaster’s office. If they don’t get caught, if they are careful, then everything should be okay, and it will extend some protection to Zooey. Something goes wrong, things get out of hand, and then, after a brutal beating, Zooey decides he has had enough and lashes out in a way that reveals just how menacing the book of spells truly is.
There are many layers to Fraternity, and the manner in which Mientus has crafted this nuanced story of intrigue and horror is absolutely outstanding. A dangerous book of spells is not new to dark fantasy, but the reasons compelling Zooey and his friends to wield it are significant, and this group of desperate young men, which extends out to the entire Vicious Circle, is enormously appealing. The forces against them are all too recognizably human and horrible, and even the demon called by the book cannot compare to them. As the boys realize just how great the stakes are, and scramble for a way out, they learn that some monsters cannot be confined and that others have been planning for their destruction all along. Who survives, and the prices they pay, are intense to read about and again, entirely heartbreakingly, believable.
It’s hard for me to review Fraternity from an impartial distance because I was a teen in the AIDS era. I remember the irrational fear, I remember the cascade of deaths, and I remember my friends who spent years denying who they were in order avoid abuse. Mientus captures that era with such skill and grace in his novel and makes it easy to understand why Zooey, Leo, Steven and Daniel (Oh! What happens to Daniel!) are driven to take huge risks with the spell book. I cannot recommend Fraternity enough; it faces down a tragic period of American history with a laser focus that permits no denial of its ugliness and truth. This is SFF at its best; a book that can change the lives of those who read it.
This review and more like it in the March 2023 issue of Locus.
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