100 Boyfriends

An irreverent, sensitive, and inimitable look at gay dysfunction through the eyes of a cult hero "It’s like that saying, 'Where god closes a door, he opens a window,' but in this particular case the window was on the fifth floor and the house was on fire." Transgressive, foulmouthed, and devastatingly funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting — and often losing — the urge to self-sabotage. His characters solicit sex on their lunch breaks, expose themselves to racist neighbours, sleep with their coworker’s husbands, rub Preparation H on their hungover eyes, and, in an uproarious epilogue, take a punk band on a disastrous tour of Europe. They also travel to claim inheritances, push past personal trauma, and cultivate community while living on the margins of a white supremacist, heteronormative society. Armed with a deadpan wit that finds humour in even the lowest of nadirs, Brontez Purnell writes with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah. From dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama, Purnell indexes desire, desperation, race, and loneliness with a startling blend of levity and vulnerability. "Purnell is so good on sex; the scenes are so filthy and true that they draw all the attention. The book has been warmly received but reviewers, describing the sex, have curiously uncoupled it from the lives of the men, who meet between shifts at work or move in together because one is homeless, say, or addicted ... But how starkly these characters seem to seek in one another what the world does not provide — a kind of safety and permanence of work and housing, which are so scant and fragile in this book." - Parul Sehgal, The New York Times An irreverent, sensitive, and inimitable look at gay dysfunction through the eyes of a cult hero It's like that saying, 'Where god closes a door, he opens a window, ' but in this particular case the window was on the fifth floor and the house was on fire. Transgressive, foulmouthed, and devastatingly funny, Brontez Purnell's 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting--and often losing--the urge to self-sabotage. His characters solicit sex on their lunch breaks, expose themselves to racist neighbors, sleep with their coworker's husbands, rub Preparation H on their hungover eyes, and, in an uproarious epilogue, take a punk band on a disastrous tour of Europe. They also travel to claim inheritances, push past personal trauma, and cultivate community while living on the margins of a white supremacist, heteronormative society. Armed with a deadpan wit that finds humor in even the lowest of nadirs, Brontez Purnell--a widely acclaimed underground writer, filmmaker, musician, and performance artist--writes with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah. From dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama, Purnell indexes desire, desperation, race, and loneliness with a startling blend of levity and vulnerability. Together, the slice-of-life tales that writhe within 100 Boyfriends are a singular and uncompromising vision of an unexposed queer underbelly. Holding them together is the vision of an iconoclastic storyteller, as fearless as he is human. An irrerverent, sensitive, and inimitable look at gay dysfunction through the eyes of a cult hero Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure—from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama—Purnell’s characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it—or perhaps because of it—they shine. Armed with a deadpan wit, Purnell finds humor in even the darkest of nadirs with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah. Together, the slice-of-life tales that writhe within 100 Boyfriends are an inimitable tour of an unexposed queer underbelly. Holding them together is the vision of an iconoclastic storyteller, as fearless as he is human. "Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell's 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure--from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama--Purnell's characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it--or perhaps because of it--they shine"-- Provided by publisher Slice-of-life tales and a singular and uncompromising vision of an unexposed queer underbelly. Armed with a deadpan wit that finds humor in even the lowest of nadirs, Purnell writes with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah