Fruit, by Brian Francis

I think the world would be a lot better off if we all had truth-telling nipples. Sure, there’d probably be a national masking-tape shortage, but we’d get by with the help of those two sage advisers. But if we can’t all have talking nipples, the next best thing is to read a unflinchingly honest book about a boy who does. Fruit is the story of Peter Paddington and overweight 13-year-old from Sarnia, Ontario, who is dismayed to discover that his nipples have popped out.  It’s bad enough that they look like cherries, but they also whisper things Peter may not be ready to face.

Francis remembers seems to remember exactly what it’s like to be a 13 year old, and provides all the details that give the book its disarming authenticity. Whether it’s the girls in the schoolyard who categorize their stickers by scent, the Slut girls who are popular because they let the Bangers (metalheads) finger them at recess, or the ugly girl who even someone as unpopular as Peter doesn’t want to be seen with – the cast of characters are all-too familiar. So are the interactions between Peter’s family – his self-important sisters who bicker incessantly, his smothering mother who makes Peter wear a whistle around his neck when he goes out in public, or his patient, but withdrawn father.

Peter’s deluded idealism (he will be thin, popular, athletic and have a boy friend, rather than a boyfriend, in grade 9) is perhaps what makes him most endearing – despite the continual humiliations of being 13 and unpopular (volunteering in the library at recess, being bullied, eating lunches with mom and I Love Lucy), Peter is hopeful that things can change for him and those around him.  Take his list to become a new and improved Peter Paddington:

1) Lose weight.
2) Buy more clothes.
3) Learn how to play sports.
4) Try to look Mr. Hanlan in the eye.
5) Get a boy friend.
6) Smile more.
7) Be vague.
8) Get tanned.
9) Act confident.
10) Lose weight.
And here I was , almost a year later and I hadn’t managed to do one thing on the list. In fact, the list only got bigger. I grabbed a pen.
11) Get normal nipples.

Perhaps the most touching moment in the book is when Peter realizes that he is cut from the same cloth as his ugly, bed-wetting neighbour Daniela – hopelessly unpopular, but still courageous people with the potential to change. They can change some things (Peter can lose weight, Daniela can get a real job), but there are some things not even the intervention of the Virgin Mary can help…

The one thing that Peter can’t change is that no matter how much he wants to (not that his nipples will let him ignore it) – his search for a boy friend is really a search for a boyfriend. Though Peter’s battle with his emerging homosexuality is one thing perhaps I can’t identify with, I found it genuinely touching to share Peter’s tentative forays into same-sex attraction and alternate lifestyles: Bedtime Movies (PG fantasies about the men in his life with the potential to go PG-13), his diligent monitoring of the men’s underwear fashions in the Sears catalogue, and his joyous private drag performance as Olivia Newton John in his living room. Peter knows that he shouldn’t enjoy these things the way he does, but as the novel progresses he starts to acknowledge that maybe his nipples speak the truth. There is hope that maybe one day he won’t have to tape them up.

Fruit is a quick and entertaining read, and whether straight or queer, fat or thin, boy or girl, is sure to provide some laughs and shivers of recognition, for above all this is a novel about that overwhelming desire for acceptance that dominates our teen years, but never fully leaves most of us.  So in true Peter Paddington style, here’s my mental telepathy message to you: “Read this book and discover your inner Fruit.”

Fruit is a CBC Canada Reads pick for 2009. You can find out more about it on the Canada Reads website, the Fruit site, or at ECW’s website, . Fruit will be championed by author Jen Sookfong Lee, whose first novel, The End of East, I’ve also reviewed.

As a fun bonus, listen to Brian read excerpts of Fruit – it’s guaranteed to make you smile.