Already an accomplished musician, 16-year-old Dale dreams of a career in music. Much to his disappointment, when his family moves, his new school has no arts program. His only opportunity for practice there is a storage room where he plays the violin. Life is complicated: his father is dead, and his mother’s remarried—to a man with a son the same age as Dale. When Dale finds himself frustrated and lonely, he starts writing letters to his deceased father, Pa. It is through these private letters, full of typical f-bombed teen language, that the novel unfolds. Dale is facing the realization that he is gay, especially as he begins to make friends with a film-loving friend, Rusty. Although gayness and the challenges of coming out are major ideas here, just as important are the dynamics of blended families and the repercussions that come about when long-held secrets rise to the surface.

Cautions / Content Warnings: Brief scenes of male sexual intimacy.
Bibliography: No
Index: No

Source: Books BC - BC Books for Schools

Benjamin Lefebvre editor of The L.M. Montgomery Library, is director of L.M. Montgomery Online. His publications include an edition of Montgomery’s rediscovered final book, The Blythes Are Quoted, and the three-volume critical anthology The L.M. Montgomery Reader, which won the 2016 PROSE Award for Literature from the Association of American Publishers. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

Benjamin Lefebvre's profile page

Lefebvre delivers a fresh, poignant, and deeply intimate narrative for the modern reader. Dale Cardigan may be a teenager, but his search for meaning in love and music is a reminder to all of us that finding your own melody is magic. -Vanessa Brown, author of The Forest City Killer: A Serial Killer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice

Lefebvre writes about grief, sexuality, and family with great success ... Highly recommended. -CM: Canadian Review of Materials

In the Key of Dale is an ode to queer teens - and artists! - who boldly found ways to stay true to themselves while also coping in places that weren't always supportive. Told with humour and compassion, Benjamin Lefebvre's epistolary grief narrative will have readers both laughing and crying - sometimes at the same time. -Melanie J. Fishbane, author of Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery

By turns snarkily funny and wrenchingly poignant, Benjamin Lefebvre's debut novel is a pitch-perfect paean to the geeks, loners and musical prodigies you knew - or were - in high school. As a geek/loner/former music 'prodigy' myself, I can tell you that In the Key of Dale contains not a single false note. A revelatory delight from beginning to end. -C.E. Gatchalian, author of Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man

Benjamin Lefebvre's debut YA novel offers all the pleasures of a breezy, gay, will-they-won't-they high school romance while also tackling weightier themes. The result is a portrait that is surprisingly fresh yet will resonate strongly with readers' own experiences of navigating the fraught world of adults before attaining the benefits of adult autonomy ... Complex, thoughtful, and compelling: In the Key of Dale is sure to strike a chord. -Quill and Quire

Dale Cardigan is an unforgettable teenager who is unapologetically true to himself. I want to adopt Dale as my fictional nephew and invite him and his friend Rusty over for dinner. Benjamin Lefebvre writes about grief, sexuality, and family with wit and wordplay. Dale is going through all the awful, wonderful, huge feelings that come with being alive, and reading In the Key of Dale, I went through all those emotions with him. Lefebvre has written a moving celebration of teenage friendship, sex, and creative life. -Susie Taylor, author of Even Weirder Than Before

In the Key of Dale is pitch perfect. I fell in love with Dale Cardigan, and I couldn't stop turning the pages. Full of complex characters and relationships, this is a debut novel with great heart. Read it! -Bill Konigsberg, award-winning author of The Music of What Happens