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100 Boyfriends

Brontez Purnell

MCD x FSG Originals

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ISBN10: 0374538980
ISBN13: 9780374538989

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192 Pages

$17.00

CA$23.00

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Longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize
Winner of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) Robert Rauschenberg Award
Winner of a Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction
Longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award

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.

Reviews

Praise for 100 Boyfriends

"100 Boyfriends is a collection of short stories so wrigglingly alive and counter-culturally refreshing that it deserves a new noun—a pod of whales, a murder of crows, a jubilee of Brontez Purnell stories? I’d wager that he sets down the best first lines of any living writer."—Molly Young, Vulture

"[100 Boyfriends] reads like a series of 4 a.m. text messages received from a very smart and very messy friend—when there’s no way you can wait till morning to respond, 'What the fuck? Are you OK? Did you at least have fun?' If Purnell is a living archive of the Bay’s queer and punk scenes in last two decades, 100 Boyfriends is an autofiction anthology of drug-fueled warehouse dwellers, queer skate kids, and regretless heartbreakers."—Saam Niami, Vulture

"American literature has been a bit too polite for the past few decades. Gone are the thrilling and seedy transgressions of a William S. Burroughs or a 'J.T. LeRoy.' Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends rectifies that in its tales about nymphomaniac men looking for transcendence in a fuck."The Millions

"No one can write and tell a story like Brontez Purnell. This is a fact. I laughed, I cried, I winced, I gagged. I texted my friends whole pictures of pages while reading 100 Boyfriends . . . Every sentence in 100 Boyfriends made me giddy; Brontez Purnell writes about everything that goes on in your head before, during, and after sex with a wit and clarity that has become the hallmark of his work."—Jeffrey Masters, The Advocate

"An astonishing collection of short stories that explore the varied experiences of Black queer men with a unique mix of electrifying humor and aching humanity. Expect to devour this one in a single sitting—it's just that good."—Sabienna Bowman, PopSugar

"Starting with the epigraph, 'Fuck All Y’all,' the book proceeds from that slap to a readerly seduction, sharing with abandon the narrators’ most intimate loves, hates, disappointments and excitements. If 100 Boyfriends reads at first glance as a procession of hangovers and unruly lovers, its structure is, in fact, a provocation. There are few narrative possibilities afforded to queer Black men 'out there' and, in this way, the book thwarts those clichés head on, simultaneously throwing the reader into a quickie frisson while letting them dangle in the actual uncertainty and exhaustion of these moments."—Savannah Knoop, Cultured Magazine

"This collection of short stories by the renowned Oakland-based writer, musician, director and dancer will have you laugh, cry and think about life all in a single sitting."TimeOut

Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a symphony of sex, trouble and wisdom—as if the composer had sex with each member of the orchestra by way of getting it right. An electric prismatic genre-defying punk literary flight, Purnell is twirling here—I loved every page."—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

"Brontez Purnell has such seemingly casual genius that at times you forget you're reading a book and are transported to some couch/bus/basement where the drugs are really good and your friend is really funny, maybe your weird closeted cousin is on HarlemHookups in the corner, and all of a sudden your friend says some fucking Sappho ass, weird ass, brilliant ass bullshit. I love this slut of a book, it’s a slut ass maker. 100 Boyfriends or no new boyfriends at all, Purnell’s autofiction/memoir/whatever the hell this marvelously sad and intoxicating book is shook me up good with its honesty and blunt-to-face endings, the jokes and stories I didn’t know we were allowed to tell outside of circles of faggots and misfits. But this book is in those circles, makes you tea and steals for you, it invites us in, but would we mind shutting the hell up cause it’s a little hungover? The light is coming through the windows so clear."—Danez Smith, author of Homie

No one writes like Brontez Purnell. It’s not just that he is hilariously irreverent, which he is, but that he reserves reverence for that which is deserving. 100 Boyfriends is like a good lover, at turns vulgar and vulnerable, dirty and desperate, and always grinding toward magic.”—Justin Torres, author of We the Animals

"Scathingly lucid, filthily pure, this is the most astute, witty, acid-tongued and emotionally generous book about relationships—from one night stands to internet no-no’s to ill-conceived crushes to long-term loves, requited and otherwise—I’ve read. Painfully knowing yet never jaded, 100 Boyfriends dissects, explodes, lambasts, and revels in the ugly beauty of imperfect intimacies with prose that consistently puts its finger on the bleeding pulse of contemporary desire. An unforgettable ode to the heart that beats inside every longing body."—Maryse Meijer, author of The Seventh Mansion

"The stories in 100 Boyfriends took me on a journey: They made me laugh. They made me gasp. They made me feel. Brontez Purnell is a vibrant literary voice you won't soon forget. I love this book."—De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills

"This stunning collection of vignettes from artist, punk rocker, and Whiting Award winner Purnell forms a delightfully crass, kaleidoscopic worldview. Each story introduces new heartbreaks and reminders that moments of intimacy often end in loneliness . . . Purnell brilliantly immerses the reader in Black, queer desire with humor, self-awareness, and just the right amount of vulgarity."Publishers Weekly

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt

IN THE MORNING



I WOKE UP ALARMED. I didn’t know where I was at first. It was that feeling of waking up someplace foreign and being like, “What the fuck?!” But then you look to the left and you’re like, “Oh,...

About the author

Brontez Purnell

Brontez Purnell is the author of several books, including 100 Boyfriends, which won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction, was longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and was named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction and the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. Born in Triana, Alabama, he's lived in Oakland, California, for two decades.

Melissa Dale Neal

Authors Dance Company