Book Write-up: Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In Since I Laid My Burden Down, Brontez Purnell creates an amazing portrait of a character at the coming together of a lot of intersections: black, queer, Southern, San Franciscan, Lutheran, Baptist, lover, son, uncle. This book is sometimes hilarious, sexy and heartbreaking, and always honest. I devoured it in one sitting.

Deshawn is an artist living in San Francisco. He returns to Alabama for a funeral, and flashes of his life between the two spaces appear. Family and lovers enter the narrative and disappear again. The pace is fast, though there is less emphasis on plot than on character and how these seemingly contradictory identities play out in the central character. The time frame and setting shift mostly between Alabama and San Francisco.





I loved the honesty that imbues Purnell's writing about queer sexuality. It's raw, it's honest, it's sexy. It doesn't sanitize or uncomplicate itself for the hetero gaze. Nor does Purnell seem to uncomplicate blackness for a white gaze. I'm sure that others can speak more eloquently to that than I can.

Since I Laid My Burden Down is a highly effective book and one of my favorite books written in the past few years. I highly recommend it.



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