Desert Boys Fiction

Desert Boys is hilarious, devious, original, and unforgettable; Chris McCormick writes with a joyful swerve and swagger that is all his own." - Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove " Desert Boys is a show off's debut, the work of an unabashed polyglot. There seems to be nothing Chris McCormick can't do: smartypants metafictional experiment, heart-pounding thriller, eulogy for boyhood bonds, meditation on sexuality and post-9/11 intolerance. These linked stories assemble into a kind of compound eye through which we glimpse an oft-forgotten corner of California and, most superbly, a fresh take on masculine Americana. McCormick is the artsy outsider, the affectionate anthropologist, the near-feral boy with a wide-angle lens of history." - Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus "In the hands of this young master of purified prose, ambition, love, and the restlessness of boyhood are trapped as if in a crystal vial. No reader will be able to turn away." - Chigozie Obioma, author of The Fishermen "Chris McCormick's book is a gift from the new West. In the dry, highland exurbs of Los Angeles and other exotic places, McCormick crafts lustrous tales of brotherhood, immigrants, love, and paintball. Filled with unforgettable characters, Desert Boys is a deeply moving journey through the natural and emotional landscapes of the American present." - Hector Tobar, New York Times bestselling author of Deep Down Dark and The Barbarian Nurseries "This is a book about place, or really like so many books about place ( Dubliners, Winesburg, Ohio ) two places, in this case two Californias - San Francisco on the one hand; the less familiar but finely evoked small desert community from which the narrator originates on the other. But it's also a book about shame, two shames, the shame of where we come from, and the shame of leaving it. Through a series of quietly intimate confessions we learn how torn the teller is between past and present, small town and big city, and McCormick captures this tension beautifully in the contrast between his laconic, but frankly feeling prose and his restless formal innovation. Wise and vulnerable by turns, this is a quietly stunning debut." - Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl "