Winger (novel)

Synopsis

The narrator, Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He reveals that "Ryan Dean" is in fact his first name and that his intelligence has led him to skip ahead two grades. He lives at Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers. He is assigned a room in O-Hall with Chas Becker, a senior whom Ryan Dean despises. After being invited to play a poker game by Chas, Ryan Dean's former roommates JP, and Seanie warn him about the consequence, a typically humiliating dare given to the losing player.

When playing poker that midnight, Ryan Dean is forced by Chas to drink beer, his first ever alcoholic beverage. Finding out about him getting drunk in school, Annie becomes upset with Ryan Dean. He apologizes to Annie and she accepts it saying that it's typical for boys to act stupid temporarily and plan to talk at Stonehenge, a circle of stones in a clearing of the forest with which Annie believes you can make a wish whenever going in. When walking back out of the path of Stonehenge, Ryan reveals his wish through a Venn diagram to have her realize that although he is fourteen, he is just as good for her as any other one of the boys at PM and she regretfully reveals her wish was for his wish to come true. He feels as though this may have ruined their friendship.

After his very first study session with Chas' girlfriend, Megan, the two begin secretly kissing and flirting with each other which makes him become more confident around Chas. JP informs Ryan Dean of Annie being his date to the upcoming Halloween dinner, this news sparking outrage and betrayal in Ryan Dean. When playing a resistance drill known as "sumo," he takes all of his anger and frustration out on JP as he continuously tackles him, but is left with eighteen stitches on a large cut above his left eyebrow when JP retaliates. Ryan Dean then flies to Seattle with Annie to stay with her and her family for the weekend. During this time, Megan and Ryan Dean's relationship becomes questionable for Chas resulting in a confrontation between the two. Joey comes to Ryan Dean's defense and warns Chas that he'd kill him if he touched Ryan Dean. After a game against Sacred Heart, Kevin is stabbed in the shoulder by one of four scrubs who were seeking Joey. Joey reveals to Ryan Dean that the stabber's name was Mike, and that he had dated Mike's brother. After Mike's brother was sent away for being gay, his brother threatened to come after Joey. Ryan Dean believes it was this particular moment when he and Joey truly became best friends.

While in Seattle, Ryan Dean and Annie discover an abandoned sawmill. Annie shows Ryan Dean a painting on the wall she had found of two overlapping circles and the word "someday," which reminded her of the wish he had made at Stonehenge. They share their first kiss. On the last day In Seattle, Ryan Dean and Annie run into the woods in the pouring rain, and when Ryan Dean attempts to kiss her again, she asks that he does not, and tells him she can't love him. Ryan Dean becomes distant with Annie because of this, but she kisses him yet again once they arrive at the airport which makes Ryan Dean feel as if he is going insane because of Annie's indecisiveness. On the car ride back to Pine Mountain it is evident that there is a love triangle with Ryan Dean sitting right in the middle of it, with Megan sneakily playing with Ryan Dean's foot while Annie held his hand.

At midnight, Ryan Dean plays his second round of poker with Chas, Joey, Kevin, and Casey, and the boys take shots of whiskey. He and Chas lose and must take up "the consequence." Casey assigns the boys the task of driving twenty-five miles away in order to buy costumes for all five of the players, so Joey decides to be the designated driver since Ryan and Chas are both drunk. During the trip, Chas demands Ryan Dean tell him what is going on with he and Megan with which he confesses that they have kissed a few times. Saddened by the news, Chas leaves. While Joey and Ryan Dean are alone, Ryan Dean asks why Joey doesn't have a boyfriend, and he responds that he does in fact have a boyfriend, but keeps it private at school as it would cause too much trouble. He also reveals that Casey Palmer is secretly gay and wants to be with him. After the boys find Halloween costumes, they find Chas on the way back to Pine Mountain. That morning, Ryan Dean tells Megan that they can no longer continue to see each other, given his concern for Annie's feelings, which causes Megan to cry.

Ryan Dean finally has his stitches removed and arranges a date with Annie at Stonehenge. Once at Stonehenge, Annie reminds Ryan Dean that she can't be in love with him, but he convinces her otherwise. Joey, however, remains Ryan Deans closest friend, and when Ryan Dean confides in him how he wishes he could go back and not even have been put in O-Hall to begin with, Joey remarks: "You know, nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was. Things just expand and contact. Like the universe, like breathing. But you'll never fill your lungs up with the same air twice." On his way back to his room, Ryan Dean runs into Casey and Nick, who accuse him of being gay, and make him aware of how much they'd like to fight him. Although Ryan Dean wants to reveal Casey's secret, he knows it would not be in his best interest to do so.

Ryan Dean and the O-Hall boys attend Pine Mountain's Halloween party. He apologizes to Megan and Chas and Megan accepts and reveals she is in love with him, and Chas is admirable at Ryan Dean's courageousness, but reminds him that he still hates him. Ryan then sees an upset Joey who announced in front of other people that Casey needed to hit on another gay student at Pine Mountain. Joey tells Ryan Dean that he, Annie and Kevin are his true friends. Ryan Dean returns to a dark and eerie O-Hall where he encounters a drunken Casey threatening to kill him.

The morning after the dance, Ryan Dean realizes that Joey had not been present for both his calculus and economic classes, and when he asks Kevin, he remarks that Joey hadn't come home after the party, and debated on whether he might've run away, but his car was still at the school's lot. He also reveals that Nick and Casey had gotten into a fight with Joey. Ryan Dean informs officers of Joeys disappearance after the previous night. The next morning, Ryan Dean wakes up to see many police officers, park rangers, and staff in front of Pine Mountain, searching for Joey. Chas and Ryan Dean decide to help with the investigation in the snowy woods. Later that afternoon, Joey was found dead in the woods. He had been stripped naked, tied to a tree, and beaten to death by Casey and Nick. Following his death, O-Hall was sealed off. Ryan Dean notes that he stopped talking after Joey's death, with the exception of whispering to Annie when he needed to. His parents thought it'd be best to remove him from Pine Mountain, but he felt otherwise as he did not want to be away from Annie. Ryan Dean and Chas become close friends and Kevin becomes somewhat of a peacemaker between the two of them. Ryan Dean thinks about how he'd been on a journey of "reinventing" himself throughout the novels entirety, and realizes that when you grow up, instead of sex, almost everything is about love.

Characters

Ryan Dean Mario West- Narrator and protagonist of the novel, Ryan Dean is known as "Winger" because of his position as winger on his varsity rugby team. He thinks of himself as a loser. Ryan Dean develops into a man by becoming more happy with himself as the story progresses.

Joey Cosentino- A senior at Pine Mountain, Joey is Ryan Dean's very best friend, and plays fly half for the varsity rugby team. Despite Joey's homosexuality, Ryan Dean trusts Joey and his sexuality does not faze him.

Annie Altman- Ryan Dean’s girl friend, two years older than him. Annie is the first person he met at Pine Mountain. She thinks Ryan is the smartest and best looking boy at Pine Mountain.

Chas Becker (Betch)- A senior at Pine Mountain, and Ryan Dean's roommate in O-Hall. He is a great athlete but a colossal jerk. Although he and Ryan Dean are not so fond of each other, the two gradually become friends.

John-Paul Tureau (JP)-JP is popular and smart and is known for going from girl to girl at Pine Mountain. He is Ryan Dean's former best friend and roommate and holds the position of fullback on the rugby team. Annie is the reason for the deteriorating of he and Ryan Deans' friendship.

Sean Flaherty (Seanie)- One of Ryan Dean's former roommates for his first two years at Pine Mountain, and rugby teammate. He plays the position of scrum half. His friendship with Ryan Dean is affected through the confrontations between Ryan Dean and his roommate, JP.

Megan Renshaw- Chas' girlfriend, who Ryan Dean finds to be extremely intimidating and sexy. She, Ryan and Joey form a calculus study group. She develops a relationship with Ryan Dean, who sees her as more accessible than Annie.

Casey Palmer- Casey is a bully at Pine Mountain.

Nick Matthews- Caseys roommate, also a violent bully. Nick has as a tattoo of a skull on his shoulder and shows his disdain for "queers" whenever mentioned. He makes Ryan Dean aware that he and Casey were planning on hurting him and Joey.

Metanarrative style

Winger is a framed metanarrative novel as the text is the protagonists' story within various past events that make the stories connect. Throughout the novel, protagonist Ryan Dean recalls events and his conversations with others in a somewhat vaguely manner.

Graphic style

Because of Ryan's Dean's passion for drawing, he inserts a collection of comics into each chapter, visualizing various events that he previously experienced. These comics correlate to the visual Venn diagrams that Ryan Dean uses in order to tell elements of his story more clearly.

Gender themes

Smith makes readers aware of the disconnect between men and women through Ryan Dean's relationship with Annie, Megan, and his own mother, and how this differs greatly with his ability to easily understand all of his male friends on his rugby team. Since Ryan Dean is only fourteen-years-old in a class of students two years older than himself, he struggles with emerging from a little boy into a man, so he is easily influenced by the male characters in the novel and continuously attempts to identify with them so as to fit in. However, such "manliness" is challenged by the females in the story whom all establish a sense of power over Ryan Dean.

Reception