Brontez Purnell

An irrerverent, 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.

100 Boyfriends

Indie artist and punk queen Brontez Purnell s long-awaited novel is an uninhibited exploration of growing up gay in 1980s Alabama."

Since I Laid My Burden Down

He's a slut. He's a nerd. He's a waiter, bored at work. This is his diary.

Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger

Ten Bridges I've Burnt

Michael Bullock

Cesar Padilla

Sean DeLear

The 1979 Teenage Diaries of Sean Delear

I Could Not Believe It

Johnny Would You Love Me If...

The Cruising Diaries

At night, Jacuzzi cares for his baby brother, makes a blender cyclone, ponders life, and waits for mama's arrival home.

The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett

The Cruising Diaries is a queer coming of age memoir that's not for the faint of heart. Follow author and musician Brontez Purnell on a series of hilarious sexual misadventures through '00s Oakland. Outrageous tales of taco truck trysts and bathhouse Santas are accompanied by full-color illustrations in this glorious expanded edition.

Expanded Edition

Tiona Nekkia McClodden

Cheryl Dunye

Ellen Spiro

Tacoma Action Collective

Visual AIDS

Thomas Allen Harris

Kia LaBeija

Mykki Blanco

ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS was the 28th annual iteration of Visual AIDS' longstanding Day With(out) Art project. Curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett for Visual AIDS, the video program prioritized Black narratives within the ongoing AIDS epidemic, commissioning seven new and innovative short videos from artists Mykki Blanco, Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia LaBeija, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell.The 54 page soft cover publication includes film stills and artist statements from contributing filmmakers Mykki Blanco, Kia LaBeija, Cheryl Dunye and Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Brontez Purnell; a statement by curators Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett; and an essay by the Tacoma Action Collective.

Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings

Day With(out) Art 2017

Brontez Purnell

About

Books

Join the club