SIMPLE ENOUGH PREMISE--gay Black man raised in rural Alabama, long since resident in Bay Area and deeply conversant in clubbing, drugs, and sex, goes back home for a family funeral, hangs around for a while, gains some clarity on a few points, then returns to Bay Area.
Purnell himself, like his protagonist DeShawn, was raised in Alabama and now lives in Oakland, so one guesses that some aspects of the novel are autobiographical.
Autobiographical or not, though, it's highly entertaining.
Why is this novel so entertaining? The writing is colorful, shameless, brisk, often funny. The narrative toggles, sometimes very abruptly, between its Alabama and California settings, with appropriate contrast, but Alabama is its down-home way crazier than you would expect, San Francisco in its weird way more domesticated. DeShawn is on a pilgrimage of self-discovery, going home to the home you famously can't again go to, and apparently figuring something out...but what? He doesn't quite know, and Purnell wisely chooses not to lean on the point too hard. Purnell may actually be having a little fun with the old hero's journey trope. "He had been eating a lot of desserts. It felt good."
It's a foul-mouthed, gleefully wicked coming-of-age story that may actually be a never-grew-up story, and I don't think it will end up on any of the YA reading lists that Call Me by Your Name managed to sweet-talk its way onto, but if you're looking for entertaining--here you go.
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