Brontez Purnell

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 Brontez Purnell

What was once a big, beautiful star has collapsed in on its own weight and turned into a black hole.” (3) Brontez Purnell's novel 100 boyfriends, which took home the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction in 2022, has this quote. Brontez Purnell is an African American, gay dancer, director, musician, and writer. He is recognized as the co-founder of the New York-based Brontez Purnell Dance Company. In addition to being the primary singer of The Younger Lovers and author of eight novels, he received a 2018 Whiting Award for literature. (1) Has written and performed in films, performed in films, and is now filming a documentary on performer Ed Mok. Lives in a punk rock warehouse in Oakland, California, with white punks who his family considers to be worshiping the devil. Despite this, Brontez Purnell is a driven individual who aspires to pursue his passions. (4) From an early age, he became interested in writing, dance, and music. When Purnell was a little boy, his great-grandfather ignited his love for music, and he never lost it.

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Early life of Brontez Purnell

Brontez Purnell began doing art and music at an early age. He started in an Afro-punk duo in Alabama named The Social Lies. His great-grandfather was a skilled bottleneck guitarist who performed in theaters that provided a secure environment for African American performers and musicians to perform in the 1930s. He published his first zine, Schlepp Fanzine, at the age of 14, using humor to tackle the weighty topic of gay intercourse. He composed it because it expressed how he was feeling at the time, and a zine was the ideal medium for him to do it. He started Fag School because, at the age of 19, he had moved to Oakland and wanted to provide a personal homosexual zine that approached the touchy issue of gay sex with comedy and candor. First, at an early age, Brontez Purnell moved out and lived with many other children, which allowed him to find and love who he was. He acquired parent figures from others who cared for him. Purnell struggled as a teenager to come to terms with his sexuality, music, and dancing, and was removed from his culture at an early age. discovering his identity and how to accept it in a way that is all his own. His novel 100 Boyfriends depicts the disastrous lifestyles of self-destructive queen men.

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100 Boyfriends

Brontez Purnell’s novel, 100 Boyfriends, is a stunning plunge into the flawed lives of LGBTQ men who are fighting and frequently losing the temptation to self-destruction. Relentlessly humorous, vulgar, and rebellious short stories of many different characters individual impression, and emotions on the malfunctional lives of being a gay man in society. An amusing, sympathetic, and unique look at homosexual's dysfunction from the perspective of a person who is mostly unknown to the public. This book tackles gay love in all its chaotic manifestations in a shockingly meaningful way. It follows an individual who is sleeping with the spouse of a coworker. Travels through one-night hookups to repeated relationships, encounters prejudiced neighbors, uses alcohol to get out of problems, and frequently loses the impulse to self-destruction. provides us an image of racism, queer identity, desperateness, and love that is brutal and will destroy as much as it captivates. Along with traveling to collect heirlooms, overcome individual trauma, and establish communities, they also do so because they are marginalized members of a heterosexual, white supremacist community. In an explosive conclusion, his protagonists take a rock band on a catastrophic tour of Europe, request sex on their meal breaks, expose themselves to prejudiced neighbors, sleep with their colleagues' spouses, and rub Powder in their hangover faces. (5) The reader is given a sense of feeling, humor, and painful stories with encounters that were incredibly bold and different in this gay fiction book. The many stories told from the perspectives of several personas provided the book with a wonderful twist by offering a range of experiences. (6) In The New York Times book review by Parul Sehgal “this hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales is a taxonomy and grand unified theory of the boyfriend, in every tense.” (7) Based on the author Brontez Purnell's life and a Gen X vibe, this reviewer thinks this is novel is connected. Numerous narrators in the short tales have comparable characteristics and methods. The book is a revolving spinner of stories with different storytellers' views. Despite highlighting a dream of protection, rescue, and stability, the men in these stories really share expectations with one another that they are unable to acknowledge. Purnell speaks about sex in a way that most people cannot even begin to discuss. Portraying glistening, realistic scenes that grab the viewer's interest. Overall, this book provides readers with an insight into a number of everyday issues from a variety of perspectives by revealing some of the bizarre, surprising love lives of queer guy (7)

Since I Laid My Burden Down

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Brontez Purnell's novel, Since I Laid My Burden Down a gritty, humorous, and uncensored trip down memory lane, examines how a man's early creative and sexual adventures develop into a life. The story revolves around DeShawn, a gay Black man who is getting close to middle age and returns to small-town Alabama following the death of his uncle. He returns to live with his mother, a Baptist pastor with a diminishing worship who is strong and demanding. DeShawn's everyday interactions take him into sentimental rabbit holes concerning the individuals he has lost to death or other tragedies. He recalls his very restricted Southern childhood in the 1980s, including his first loves, a nearby boy who sexually assaulted him, his stepfather's outbursts, and other incidents. DeShawn becomes enmeshed in a meaningless cycle of sexual relationships and an alternative way of life after escaping to California at the age of 18. These short stories lack a cohesive plot, yet they are still skillfully rendered, usually touching, and occasionally quite hilarious. The casually forthright tone and even-keeled, even deadpan style in which Purnell presents these tragic events, mistakes, and defeats paint a powerful picture of a specific disenfranchised type of homosexual teenager stuck between desire, faith, and society. An intricate, perhaps too frantic examination of one man's experiences as a black, gay, intelligent, soft, tough, creative, and continuously hopping among both urban and rural environments. It reflects how numerous individuals have read Brontez Purnell; although being fiction, it has some facts. Numerous readers find this book to be unusual, entertaining, humorous, strange, and depressing. According to one critic, Kost Ryan, Brontez Purnell's little book Since I Laid My Burden Down intersects his queer and bold world. examines the connections between Purnell's book and his life, by stating things such as how Purnell writes about existence the way it truly occurs, an assortment of events that occasionally, in perspective, may add up to anything whenever you examine them in a particular manner. Purnell has no filter and is bold. His writing style is quite consistent, his stories are brief and straightforward. This reviewer describes Purnell's personality and how his writings, despite several obstacles, accurately capture his emotions and experiences. This book does not have a conclusion; rather, it offers the realization that life goes on despite anything else, even though one's perspective may alter. The connection of identities that his book examines without being excessively directive in its usage of language is one aspect of it. His choice to focus on a distant past rather than a recent past filled with clubbing and romances is another factor. (9) This book follows a character who encounters many difficult circumstances and trips, yet the lesson in the narrative remains equally relevant to Purnell in the same way it does to the characters in the novel.

Personal reflection

Before conducting research and writing this blog, I had never heard of Brontez Purnell; nonetheless, I have learned a great deal about the LGBTQ+ community and how he came to terms with who he is at a youthful age. He has become much more accepting of who he is, regardless of what other people may say, thanks to his acting, choreography, and dancing. His main priorities include being himself, pursuing his passions, and speaking out about accepting and loving his LGBT identity. It's intriguing to me how openly he writes about homosexual sex while utilizing comedy. He uses the themes of sexuality and sex in his works to help his audience understand their humanity. Many people find it awkward to discuss sex, but he uses comedy and his music, in addition to his writings, to assist his audience accept and be good with it. It can be challenging to grow up in a warehouse with a large population of White people when one is young, but he did not lose his culture. I liked reading about his past and seeing that his art reflects his personality and character. Although 100 Boyfriends is a work of homosexual fiction, reading about Brontez Purnell's life makes it seem as though the novel shares a lot of similarities with his experiences and outlook on life as a varied writer. This book feels authentic, as though it captures the true feelings of homosexual men in the world, despite the fact that it is gay fiction. In my opinion, Brontez Purnell has shown himself to be a self-assured, imaginative, joyful, interesting, and entertaining guy by his incredible works, acceptance of his own self, and open discussion about sex. Unlike many individuals in society, he accepts his homosexuality and speaks freely about sexual behavior, which is different and unusual in society. His writings are engaging and transport the reader to his experiences, which is an intriguing quality in my opinion. In my view, Brontez Purnell is a fantastic, hilarious, creative individual who writes well. 

Works Cited

 

1. (1) “Brontez Purnell.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Feb. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontez_Purnell. Ramírez, J. A. (2022, June 15).

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3. (2) Brontez Purnell brings his disparate parts back to the dance stage. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/arts/dance/brontez-purnell-dance.html 

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4. (3) “Brontez Purnell Quotes (Author of 100 Boyfriends).” Www.goodreads.com, www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8425943.Brontez_Purnell. Accessed 8 Mar. 2024. 

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5. (4) “Brontez Purnell Is Everything.” Granta, 5 July 2017, granta.com/brontez-Purnell-is-everything/. Accessed 8 Mar. 2024. 

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6. (5) Macmillan. (2021, July 20). Book details - Macmillan Publishers. Macmillan Publishers. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374722470/100boyfriends 

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7. (6) “Brontez Purnell: Books, Biography, Latest Update.” Amazon.com, www.amazon.com/stores/Brontez-Purnell/author/B08DKCQTHL?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true. Accessed 9 Mar. 2024. 

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8. (7) Sehgal, Parul. “‘100 Boyfriends’ Tells Lewd and Lonely Stories of Desire and Heartbreak.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/books/review-100-boyfriends-brontez-purnell.html. 

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9. (8) Amazon.com: Since I laid my burden down: 9781558614314: Purnell, ... (n.d.). https://www.amazon.com/Since-Laid-My-Burden-Down/dp/1558614311 

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10. (9) “KLN PASS User Login.” Rpas.klnpa.org, research.ebsco.com/c/qh4vbl/viewer/html/tthskqfyoz. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.