All Boys aren’t Blue is a compendium of personal essays which serves as a memoir of life so far for the author, George M. Johnson. The book is separated into four “Acts” and each of these sections is further is then further broken down into individual chapters.
Act 1: A Different Kid
This first section introduces Johnson as a five-year-old recalling his “first trauma” which was when he got his teeth kicked out. The reader is immediately plopped down into the Plainfield, New Jersey community where the Johnson family has been a mainstay for half a century. It does not take long at all to meet the author’s grandmother—familiarly known as Nanny—whose presence will hang over the rest of the narrative as the loving guardian dispensing nuggets of wisdom called Nannyisms which are quoted extensively in the author’s companion memoir, We are Not Broken. Also introduced in this section are three of central characters in the first two acts: sibling cousins of George named Little Rall and Rasul and then the youngest of what would become a gang of four, his brother Garrett. The bulk of this section is laying down the context for what comes afterward through demonstrations of what makes him “different.” It is the discovery of his self-awareness of sexual identity which, using the author’s preferred word, is queer.
Act 2: Family
The title of this section is a little misleading since the entire book seriously revolves around the significance of family. The section begins with an essay titled “Dear Little Brother” which starkly stands out from the rest courtesy of its bold print typeface. The memories of his relationship with his younger brother Garrett immediately give way to an essay titled “Nanny: The Caregiver the Hustler, My Best Friend.” With the title of this section’s third chapter, “Daddy’s Second Chance” it finally becomes obvious precisely why it is titled Family: these essays are mini-biographies of the family members mentioned except for “Losing Hopes” which introduces a family member his mother addresses as Jermaine, but young George greets as Aunt Kaye. Jermaine/Aunt Kaye eventually decides they want to change their name to Hope Loretta Cureton. The author confesses this is the one person in his family he most wanted to be like as he, too, grows up feeling conflicted by gender identity.
Act 3: Teenagers
This book inevitably found its way onto lists of books to be banned from school libraries across the south and Midwest primarily because it celebrates the right of everyone to love whoever they want. Nevertheless, the opening essay of this section made it inevitable that more than just hardcore right-wingers would attempt to keep it out of the hands of younger readers. “Boys Will Be Boys…” is a graphic description of the author’s initiation into homosexual sex—which would be controversial by itself—but that initiation also involves incest and molestation of a younger boy by an older teen at best and sexual assault at worst. Of course, there is more to being a teenager than sexual exploration and the rest of this section is an examination of what it was like being a teenage boy growing up in New Jersey literally in the shadow of the attacks of September 11, 2001. By the section’s end, George is getting ready to graduate from high school and trying to decide where he will attend college.
Act 4: Friends
Naturally enough, this section commences with George in college. By the start of the second semester, however, he is experiencing depression despite making good grades and good friends. Attempts to kick himself out of the funk include a decision on joining fraternities which leads to an extended contemplation of the darkest side of this darkest aspect of college life: dangerous hazing. The title of the succeeding chapter pretty much foreshadows the content controversial enough to get the book banned: “Losing My Virginity Twice.” The book concludes on a downbeat note in a final chapter in which one of is “line brothers” is shockingly found dead at an absurdly early age. The title of this chapter is a reflection of the guilt that has been a monkey on the back of the author ever since at his inexplicable decision to put off calling Kenny the day he arrives back home for Christmas break.
