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Warning: Full spoilers for the book follow.
A few years ago I had the good fortune of catching Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe when it happened to be playing at my local theater. It really was a stroke of chance that I got to see it on the big screen at all, and it captured my heart. The ending in particular made me weepy, but that’s not really a surprise, is it? As so often with films focusing on young queer love, I found myself reliving my own queer youth, when I was hopelessly in love with my best friend and yet powerless (or so I thought at the time) to do anything about it. I’m not saying that I live vicariously through these stories, but I’m not not saying that, either.
When I sat down to read the book, I honestly had no idea just what to expect. I knew that it was almost certainly going to be beautiful and a bit heartbreaking, because that was the case with the film. What I didn’t totally prepare for was the kind of queer narrative that, like The Song of Achilles, totally stole my heart and broke it in equal measure. It’s the kind of book that, because of both the beauty of its prose and the emotional intensity of its storytelling, keeps you flipping the page until you get to the end.
The book is told from the point of view of Aristotle “Ari” Mendoza, a surly and often alienated teenager who struggles with…well, almost everything. Like many other teens, he feels ill at ease in his own body and is a bit of a loner. This changes dramatically when he crosses paths with the much more demonstrative and emotionally communicative Dante, and the two boys soon forge an extraordinary and powerful friendship. Simmering beneath the friendship, though, is Ari’s awareness that there’s something else between them, something he can’t quite bring himself to face until the very end.
There’s an ache at the heart of the book–and, for that matter, of Ari–that pulls you in, that makes you think about and remember what it was to be young and to not be able to figure yourself out. This is a part of youth that is particularly acute for queer teens and, though the book doesn’t overemphasize the backdrop of the ‘80s, it’s hard not to think that Ari’s difficulty in accepting his own feelings for Dante, his shame at such emotion, is due at least in part to the pervasive homophobia of the area. It’s fortunate for both of them that their parents are so amazing and loving and caring.
While Dante isn’t a point of view character, such is Sáenz’s powers of description and characterization–and such is the intensity of Ari’s feelings for the other teen–that we come to feel as if we know him. Dante is, to be sure, a rather strange young man, but that’s precisely what draws Ari to him. While Ari is afraid of his own feelings and his own manhood, Dante (for the most part) seems absolutely comfortable being who he is. It’s perhaps for this reason that Ari finds himself both stymied and utterly enchanted by the other boy, something that everyone in his life can see but which he can’t quite grasp.
Obviously the relationship between Dante and Ari is the heart and soul of this book, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about their families. Both boys have parents that love them unconditionally, and I love the scenes that we get between the two men and their respective parents. It’s not every day that you see a work of queer fiction with parents as understanding as these, but what a gift they are! However, Ari’s relationship with his parents, particularly his mother, is overshadowed by the mystery of what happened to his older brother and why he’s been in prison for most of Ari’s life. The mystery of Bernardo is a persistent ache that almost nothing can fully assuage, and even Ari’s discovery of what really landed him in prison–he killed a trans prostitute with his bare hands, and then killed someone else while he was behind bars–is enough to fully answer the mystery of who he is. Thank God that Ari takes a different path than his brother.
In addition to being moving and emotionally resonant, Aristotle and Dante is also just a well-written book. What could have been a pretty typical queer coming-of-age story becomes, thanks to Sáenz’s prose, something altogether more powerful, and there were numerous moments where I just had to take a pause and appreciate and savor the beauty of his writing. Just as importantly, there’s a propulsive power to this narrative that keeps you reading and turning the pages and, when things take dramatic turns, they somehow feel both very earned and utterly surprising. I truly lost track of the number of times I had to put the book down, that’s how overwhelming the feelings were. If that doesn’t tell you just how fantastic this book is, then I don’t know what will. It’s the kind of book that’s filled with moments that take your breath away with their beauty and their emotional intensity.
For me, though, the most piercing and poignant line is the last one in the entire book. It’s the line that had me weeping in the theater, and it’s the line that had me bursting into tears while reading. As he lays in the back of his truck with Dante, having finally accepted the truth of his love, Ari wonders, “How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?” It’s a moment of radical reclamation and of coming into one’s own, of accepting one’s identity and the beauty of one’s love. As these two boys link their fingers together, you can feel their happiness, their contentment, and their joy as the universe looks on, revealing all its magnificent secrets.
Just as I was finishing the book, I read that Sáenz had died at the age of 72. The news that this extraordinary talent had passed away hit me particularly hard, and I found myself wishing that I’d discovered this book earlier. Still, it’s better late than never, and I’m certain Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe will take its rightful place as one of my very favorite queer coming-of-age love stories.