All the Truth I Can Stand

Gr 9 Up–Making his YA debut, Skidmore College professor Stokes transforms the 1998 Matthew Shepard tragedy into “speculative historical fiction,” aurally, assuredly enabled by thoughtful, controlled Picasso. Stokes’s spotlight, though, shines on 17-year-old high school senior Ash, instantly drawn to irresistible, unreliable Shepard stand-in Shane. Ash volunteers for the college theater crew where he meets aspiring journalist Jenna, who’s also close to Shane. Shane’s fatal attack tracks with real-life events; Jenna and Ash’s posthumous search to understand challenges Shepard’s posthumous iconic legacy, revealing a complex, flawed human (sealed assault charges, drug addiction/trafficking, previous intimacy with one of his attackers). To naysayers, Stokes’s revelatory author’s note includes documented sources. His conspicuous reminder that a Black man, James Byrd, Jr., was heinously murdered by white supremacists four months before Shepard, feels like a moment of significant reclamation.