Reviews
bad. read 30 pages and hated it boo
Written as a set of letters to the reader. Great short read
what a twist. not exactly easy or palatable but a heck lot of fun.
Rent Boy is Gary Indiana's novel about gay hustlers in New York City who get involved in a crooked doctor's plan to murder people and sell their body parts to hospitals for transplants. Blinded by love for his fellow rent boy, Chip (as gorgeous as he is reckless) Danny is about to learn that there's more than one way to turn your body into cash, and that cynicism is no defense when the real scalpels come out. Novels told from the perspective of gay sex workers and queer men hanging off the edge of society always intrigue me. I love books following protagonists who navigate transgressive worlds and feature uncommon perspectives. This is a darkly funny book with a high degree of linguistic sophistication. Danny is supposed to be telling the story in letters to an ex-lover, but that relationship never comes into focus. His quieter tones of voice keep getting drowned out by derisive glee. He piles on details of dress and decor and slang simply because it’s too much fun to stop, like gossiping with a friend who gets sidetracked with a million different side stories and never gets to the point. I went into this book blind and did not expect the gruesome storyline involving human organ harvesting. A lot of the characters are painted in a peculiar light, made more colourful by the protagonist’s flamboyant recollection. The protagonist has the goofiest and weirdest descriptions for all the sexual acts in the story. I might not be a male prostitute, but I know that most women don’t say things like “fuck my clam” when you’re having sex with them. I’m sure this is an intentional weird quirk that the character of Mavis is meant to have to show that she’s strange, or just Danny’s colourful/dramatized recollections, but it rattled me. I liked the depiction of how crime and working together with other criminals had an electric feeling that changed something in the air, like indulging in moral wrongdoing and breaking the rules with a group of criminals freed something primal and true between these characters. I loved how this book references Dennis Cooper’s novels, it gave this sense of connection between this book and other transgressive queer fiction. I liked seeing how Danny was even an outsider in the queer community because of his status as a rent boy, he never truly felt part of that world even though he was equally isolated from “normal” society as a queer man. I loved how Danny explained how being a rent boy gave him access to people’s darkest secrets and their truest selves, how the moments of intimacy after sex sometimes revealed so much. The ending was abrupt but I love how it turned the perception and tone of the whole story on its head. I liked this book a lot, but I’d only recommend it for fans of transgressive gay fiction and dark stories with LGBT+ characters.
An exciting experience that I was very happy to have had. I was expecting the crazy, wild experiences of a Rent Boy which I got. It was really funny and over the top. But then about halfway through the novel takes a turn and becomes an insane crime novel. And it worked so well!! Highly recommend and look forward to reading more Gary Indiana.
