Richard Peck's The Best Man

Richard Peck’s book, The Best Man, is a humorous, thoughtful, family oriented novel of a character named Archer Magill who has spent five lively years of grade school with one eye out in search of grown-up role models. Archer begins to get to grips with what growing up, and being grown up, mean. Overall, the Peck builds an idyllic, yet realistic, slice of one boy’s life, with it’s up and downs, while gently slipping in a message of tolerance. In a comfortably middle-class white suburb of Chicago, sixth grader narrator, Archer starts the story as white velvet beshorted ring bearer at a wedding, and closes it as the Ralph- Lauren clad best man at the wedding of his Uncle Paul to his teacher Mr. McLeod. Between the two, Archer gives vignettes

of his grade school and junior high years, and the reader gets to know why Archer’s laid back and empathetic dad, and big-hearted grandpa, and within time will understand why Archer wants to be them. This sunshine warm middle gray story is filled with classical humor one can relate to which makes the different voice tones of characters’ even more amusing to read.
Peck’s main purpose for writing this novel shows people that same sex marriage can be accepted into families without a speck of judgment.

Archer’s awareness of his Uncle Paul’s sexuality-and of Paul’s growing bond with Mr. McLeod, unfolds at a pace that feels authentic to an eleven -year old boy trying to make sense of the world. Uncle Paul alludes to his sexuality in multiple conversations with Archer. “Everybody had a crush on Shoewalter,” Paul says about the father of Archer’s classmate; “I think I had a crush on him to.” However, Archer misses these references entirely. When Archer’s father takes him on an unexpected trip as a mission to persuade Paul to get serious about Mr. McLeod, Archer asks “If they will talk it over.” His father responds by saying “No, we’re guys. We will talk about the Cubs or cars, but we’ll make sure to Paul sees there’s a place for Ed McLeod in our family. During this scene, Archer was moved emotionally to encourage Uncle Paul that he sees no problem for the two of them to be together because love is love, regardless of the gender. With Archer’s caring personality, he gives Uncle Paul words of wisdom, only appreciated him more for being a great role model in his life, especially when Paul helped handle a bully. In its quiet way, by normalizing a variety of flavors of gay and straight masculinity for the first generation raised in a world in which gay marriage is the law of the land, The Best Man shows readers how families can come together with a full team of support for same sex

marriage.
Peck also shows how love and support through family members and friendships can get them through any rough patches. Lynette Stanley is an interesting character in The Best Man. Her first encounter with Archer was rather quite interesting, yet she ended up being one of his best friends. In theory, she is always two steps ahead of him, but still helped him through problems he faced during school. After Archer’s grandfather passed away, Lynette was right there by his side reminiscing upon all the good traits he owned. Even though Lynette had a wild personality, Archer was still able to go to her about any kind of hardships such as bullies, accepting opinions from other people in new light and understanding the importance of what Uncle Paul and Mr. McLeod share. Lynette was an outstanding friend, but Archer gains some wisdom on his own after befriending a visiting student from England, he concludes: “We thought he was weird. He thought we were weird. It was great. It was what multiculturalism ought to be.” The love Archer’s father provided him with made Archer nourish into a kind gentlemen. Besides Archer’s father being good at fixing problems, as he is at restoring vintage cars; he could accomplish any mishap with the family. At the time, when Archer found out about Mr. McLeod’s sexuality along with Uncle Paul’s he was completely clueless on how to cope with such unexpected news. On the other hand, his father demonstrates exactly what a family man is supposed to do in a situation with close relatives that are gay. A prime example is by lending a helping hand to those you care about, even in very adult situations of love and marriage. Archer becomes brave by overcoming challenges as any quasi-geeky kid – he has to learn where to sit at lunch, navigate new kids and bullies, and hopefully grow up enough to start seeing the writing on the wall. He must deal with the death of a hero and his own hand in the relationship of two of his favorite people. The strong bond he shares with his father benefits Archer to realize we have room in our hearts for as many heroes as we meet.
A strength of Peck’s writing in The Best Man is he distinctively gave each character a unique voice, a remarkable feat, given the number of adult male role models. To start with Archer, Pecker does an incredible job bringing Archer to life. He subtly changes his tone and delivery to reflect Archer’s growing maturity without going over the top and insulting listeners with a too-babyish voice at the beginning or a laughably prepubescent voice at the end. Archer’s dad speaks in a reassuring and knowledgeable tone; his uncle Paul’s voice is urbane; and Mr. McLeod, the student teacher, sounds like a guy’s guy. Peck also gives distinctive voices to Archer’s classmates, like the wise Lynette and British aristocrat Lord Hilary. Lynette proclaims repletely her usage of vocabulary is in advanced of her other classmates and Hilary by far cared only about herself. Peck purposely sets a different voice tone for each individual character, to symbolize a sense of humor and a way to accompany their personalities.
Another strength of Peck’s writing is his use of humor. Lynette brags continuously stating she has a fifth-grade vocabulary, but is only in first grade. In fact, during class Lynette knew the word fledgling which astonished Hilary to say that wasn’t a real word. Lynette decides to rub it into Hilary’s face that she is well prepared for A.P. English; ironically the result ended up being taken down on the floor with sections of hair being pulled and screaming to get off one another. Peck makes the children in the book seem to be a better fit as adults compared to first and sixth graders. Once Archer reaches middle school Lynette changes her physical features and goes by the name Lynn which stabilizes the humor. The humor continues when Mr. McLeod begins to student teach Archer’s class. Mr. McLeod addressed the class as troops and had some odd techniques he used to teach the class with. Since Mr. McLeod joined the National Guard to pay for his college tuition, he would start the class off with some National Guard workout routines. Most of the day, the class would run in place and did stretches, meanwhile McLeod is in his shirtsleeves, being their leader. Another technique was when he hung maps up all over the walls in the classroom for the students to find places they are unfamiliar with. The class had to find Kazakhstan, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Omaha Beach and Selma. In the process of finding these places, Hilary warned Mr. McLeod that being exposed to this much unfamiliar material could damage their self-esteem. Regardless, Mr. McLeod wanted to teach Archer’s class new ideas full of fun, excitement and action packed comedy.
In general, I enjoyed this book because, I can relate to the meaning of caring friendships and family members who can guide you in the right path of an obstacle. I noticed the most profound lessons about prejudice, conflict resolution, and gay rights are taught by Archer’s mentors, all-too-human heroes, whom readers will come to admire as much as Archer does. It’s an indelible portrait of what it looks like to grow up in an age of viral videos and media frenzies, undergirded by the same powerful sense of family that characterizes so much of Peck’s work. I admire Peck for writing a book about same-sex marriage, especially when people today in our society frown upon it. In contrast, Archer became The Best Man through knowledge of his portrayed heroes and rightfully standing his place at the wedding of his two role models.