“Dan in Green Gables” Like a Much-Needed Hug https://ift.tt/9Cx6ptq
The day I went to my first Pride parade in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2022, I wore my rainbow flag around my neck like a cape and held another one in my hands. I’d come out of the closet in August 2020 during the pandemic, so the moment was a great opportunity for me to be in community with other people like me. Now, years later, during Pride Month, I realize how grateful I am to have a family that embraces all of who I am — a mom who takes that same flag out of the literal closet and hangs it on my bed, a dad who prays that I’ll find the right girl to spend the rest of my life with, a brother who gets me a gay-themed Lego set for my birthday. Not everyone is so lucky, especially in the South, which is why June can be a time of community, protest, and celebration.
If there was ever a book that felt like a much-needed hug at a Pride parade, it would be the young adult graphic novel Dan in Green Gables by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre.
I must confess that I have never read Anne of Green Gables, the classic novel published in 1908 by author Lucy Maud Montgomery. From the cover, I understood the book to be a “modern reimagining” of Montgomery’s classic, but because I don’t know what liberties Terciero took with the plot (besides the obvious), I won’t address those here. What I will say is this: From the minute Dan in Green Gables arrived in the mail and I opened the package, I was in awe of the stunning use of color throughout the book. It is a gorgeous book, with a story I flew through despite it being more focused on character development than on plot.
The story is about how Dan evolves through his time spent in rural Tennessee and the way the place shapes him more than what happens to him there. This heartfelt coming-of-age follows 15-year-old Dan Stewart Alvarez, an openly queer, Dolly Parton-loving teen who lives in the American South in an unstable relationship with his troubled, alcoholic mom, bouncing from home to home and dealing with the consequences of her addiction and constant rotation of boyfriends. At one point, they end up sleeping in their car.
When Dan’s mom decides on a whim to take him to visit her parents in rural Tennessee, Dan doesn’t expect for her to abandon him there for an undefined period of his adolescent life. The emotional gap between Dan and his grandparents is at the root of much of the conflict in the story. Dan is out and proud and unafraid to be himself, while his grandparents are conservative and Southern Baptist. Despite their differences, they pick up the pieces Dan’s mother left behind, teaching him a new meaning of home and what it means to belong — even if they don’t always agree.
In the beginning, we witness Dan’s grandmother try to connect with him, but she doesn’t quite get him, and neither does her traditional, conservative-leaning, at times ignorant husband. This is a book about what it means to belong when you are in a place that doesn’t always love you back.
The most rewarding moments of the book came from quiet instances in which Dan and his grandparents see eye-to-eye, like when Dan and his PawPaw go out fishing, or when Dan helps his grandmother select an outfit to wear. I did crave more from Dan and his friendships with his peers, especially from the budding romance; however, the ending felt satisfying and well-earned.
In one poignant scene, Dan and his grandmother go to the lake in the woods, and Dan expresses how much he struggles to feel like he belongs in his new community. “My whole life, I’ve gone from one place to the next,” Dan says. “We never stayed long enough for me to consider whether I fit in or not.” His grandmother says, “My whole life, I’ve been in one place. I was born here, I grew up here, and one day I plan to be buried here. I can’t imagine what it feels like not to belong. But we’re kin. My home is your home too.”
As Dan grapples with his complex situation with his mother, he soon learns that even if she raised him, the truth in Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” lyrics hits close to home: “There’s a better life.” And, if he stays in Tennessee, he just might find it.
Though his grandparents ask Dan to accompany them to church on Sundays, by the end of this tale, it’s clear their love for him has no condition. In a time of rising social and political divides, Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre’s heartfelt Dan in Green Gables reminds us that at the end of the day, we’re all kin, and sometimes home means setting aside our differences to let each other in.
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