Desert Boys (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781250075505)

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award

Finalist for the Binghamton University's John Gardner Fiction Book Award

Finalist for the Saroyan Prize for Fiction

Longlisted for the Chautauqua Prize

Hilarious, Devious, Original, and Unforgettable.--Karen Russell

A vivid and assured work of fiction, from a major new voice, following the life of a young man growing up, leaving home, and coming back again, marked by the start beauty of California's Mojave Desert and the various fates of those who leave and those who stay behind.

This series of powerful, intertwining stories illuminates Daley Kushner's world - the family, friends and community that have both formed and constrained him, and his new life in San Francisco. Back home, the desert preys on those who cannot conform: an alfalfa farmer on the outskirts of town; two young girls whose curiosity leads to danger; a black politician who once served as his school's confederate mascot; Daley's mother, an immigrant from Armenia; and Daley himself, introspective and queer. Meanwhile, in another desert on the other side of the world, war threatens to fracture Daley's most meaningful - and most fraught - connection to home, his friendship with Robert Karinger.

A luminous debut, Desert Boys by Chris McCormick traces the development of towns into cities, of boys into men, and the haunting effects produced when the two transformations overlap. Both a bildungsroman and a portrait of a changing place, the book mines the terrain between the desire to escape and the hunger to belong.

Author: Chris McCormick
ISBN-10: 1250075505
ISBN-13: 9781250075505
Publisher: Picador USA
Language: English
Published: 05/03/2016
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2016
Publishers Weekly 03/28/2016
Booklist 05/01/2016 pg. 67