Since I Laid My Burden Down
2017
First Published
4.08
Average Rating
172
Number of Pages
Whiting Award winner Brontez Purnell’s debut novel is an uninhibited portrait of growing up gay in 1980s exploring art and sex with “more layered insight than the page count should allow” (Hanif Abdurraqib, MTV News ). DeShawn lives a high, creative, and promiscuous life in San Francisco. But when he’s called back to his cramped Alabama hometown for his uncle’s funeral, he’s hit by flashbacks of handsome, doomed neighbors and sweltering Sunday services. Amidst prickly reminders of his childhood, DeShawn ponders family, church, and the men in his life, prompting the Who deserves love? A modern American classic, Since I Laid My Burden Down is a raw and searing look into the intersections of memory, Blackness, and queerness. "An antidote to the rigamarole of gay lit." — Mask Magazine "Slim yet potently realized, with a lot to ponder." — The Bay Area Reporter “ Since I Laid My Burden Down has a fearless (sometimes reckless) humor as Brontez Purnell interrogates what it means to be black, male, queer; a son, an uncle, a lover; Southern, punk, and human. An emotional tightrope walk of a book and an important American story rarely, if ever, told.” —Michelle Tea, author of Black Wave
Avg Rating
4.08
Number of Ratings
877
5 STARS
34%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
19%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads
Author
Brontez Purnell
Author · 6 books
Brontez Purnell is an Oakland-based writer, musician, dancer, and director. He is the author of several books, including Since I Laid My Burden Down, and the zine Fag School; frontman for the punk band The Younger Lovers; and founder of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company.
