A Solitary Blue

"A Solitary Blue" (1983) is a novel by Cynthia Voigt. It was a Newbery Honor book in 1984. It takes place during about the same time as "Dicey's Song", Voigt's 1983 Newbery Medal winner. Instead of revolving around the Tillermans, however, it revolves around Jeff Greene, a boy who accepts Dicey for who she is.

Plot

Solitary Blue is about a boy named Jeff Greene, whose mother leaves him at age 7 because she has to "save the world." Jeff decides to make everything perfect for his father Horace Greene, known as "the Professor", so that he won't leave as well. Jeff's connection with his father is very formal and his father is very flat and emotionless, one who always sticks to a routine. The Professor hates it when people cry, so when Jeff gets bronchial pneumonia, Jeff doesn't want to get the Professor worried about him so just acts as if it is no big deal.

After many years without any contact from his mother, she asks him to visit her in her family's home in Charleston, South Carolina. The visit allows Jeff insight into the suffering which his father was forced to deal with. He also connects with Melody, his mother, and he has a wonderful time, the first time he has ever had fun since Melody left him. After his first visit, he writes letters to Melody on the first day of every month, thinking that if she never wrote back, he shouldn't have any right to feel bad about that. That Christmas, he gives Melody a beautiful scarf and but receives nothing from her in return, not even a thank-you letter. She never even replies to the letters he writes to her.

On his second consecutive visit to Melody's home in South Carolina for the summer, Melody doesn't spend much time with Jeff anymore. She has a boyfriend and is never at home for more than a day. Jeff's second summer is very different from the first one, and by the end of it, Jeff realizes that Melody really doesn't love him. She had been feeding him lies all along, telling him that she loved him even though she truly didn't. She tells him that she had wanted a girl for a child, not him. Jeff is extremely heartbroken and withdraws himself even more than before. He begins to fail his classes and doesn't open up to anyone about his feelings.

When he meets the Tillermans, he learns to accept himself, and his relationship with his father becomes a true relationship, not something based on making each other happy. Jeff also falls in love with Dicey, whom he attracts with his guitar. Finally Jeff becomes able to put his mother behind him and bond with his father. From the beginning to the end, Jeff changes from being alone, withdrawn and quiet to more sociable, talkative, and open.