Desert Boys

by Christopher McCormick

This series of powerful, intertwining stories illuminates Daley Kushner’s world—the family, friends, and community that have both formed and constrained him, and his new life in San Francisco. Back home, the desert preys on those who cannot conform: an alfalfa farmer on the outskirts of town; two young girls whose curiosity leads to danger; a black politician who once served as his school’s confederate mascot; Daley’s mother, an immigrant from Armenia; and Daley himself, introspective and queer. Meanwhile, in another desert on the other side of the world, war threatens to fracture Daley’s most meaningful—and most fraught—connection to home, his friendship with Robert Karinger.

A luminous debut, Desert Boys by Chris McCormick traces the development of towns into cities, of boys into men, and the haunting effects produced when the two transformations overlap. Both a bildungsroman and a portrait of a changing place, the book mines the terrain between the desire to escape and the hunger to belong.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Queer, Literary Fiction, Historical

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2016

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE: A second reading of this book was a revelation: it's far more powerful the second time around (so I added a fifth star). Of course there can be no replacement, ever, for Karinger within Kush's life, so naturally Lloyd doesn't feel right as this replacement. It's still true, to me, that the middle chapters of this book are not as good as the sledgehammer opener, but very few chapters/portions/pages of any book published this year are as good as the opener here. I also read again "Homegoing" and for me it's a close call as to which is the best fiction for 2016, but I simply relate more to "Desert Boys" for several reasons, mainly because I've lived in the High Desert of Southern California as a young man.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
The opening and closing chapters of this book are heartbreaking and beautiful, approaching the miraculous "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. But McCormick's book has as its center an unresolved relationship between the main character, Kush, and his off-to-war school friend, Karinger. When Kush takes off to San Francisco, I couldn't understand, or believe, his relationship with Lloyd. Perhaps we're meant to be thrown off by Kush/Lloyd: we see the abosolute wrongness before Kush. And there are middle chapters (this book is written in the style of "Olive Kitteridge": a group of stories centered on the same characters) which aren't as strong as the aforementioned opening and closing stories. I might be trying too hard not to give this one five stars (I'm very stingy with them). That said, this is McCormick's first book, and it's better than Yanagihara's first: "The People in the Trees". I'm very much looking forward to Christopher McCormick's next work as I think he has the talent, and the heart, to deliver to us a truly great novel. This is one of the best debuts I've ever read.

[Marlin Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desert Boys spoke to me in ways that felt needed.

Through exploring sexuality, masculinity, geographic provincialism, family dynamics, and a variety of types of relationships, McCormick’s series of connected stories gives us a full and diverse world, one in which the characters of marginalized identities are not written as flattened caricatures or de-personified props (as they so often are, unfortunately). This rings true for the entire cast of characters, including Kush, the narrator. McCormick isn’t afraid to allow Kush to be simultaneously flawed and someone who elicits our empathy; a gay man and the son of an immigrant mother, Kush works through the struggles of his identity and background while also becoming aware of his positionality—his biases, forms of privileges, and shortcomings.

I feel it necessary to start here because this is what makes me feel the book is successful and powerful—not just its craft but its delicacy and fullness of content and perspective. Despite each story being from Kushner’s perspective, the variety in settings (both time and place) and shifts in forms of narration provide a breadth of viewpoints and nuance.

But even beyond the socio-political implications of the book, I’m impressed with how the stories fit together—impressive how these stories are self-contained, and then even more powerful when juxtaposed. The shifting perspectives in this non-chronological series of stories gives us a full and varied view of the world(s) Kushner lives in, and how he moves through them. The narration between pieces felt simultaneously individual and cohesive.

When I finished the book I didn’t feel ready to be finished. I felt so immersed and taken by the stories and their narrator—the power of the craft and what the craft is used to communicate and develop and complicate over the course of the book.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

(selling and grammar corrected September 2024).

I read this novel, as I read most, while reading others, in this case it was Daniel Alarcon's The King is Always Above the People' because this is often a useful way of gaining perspective on the books I read, particularly if they are as dissimilar as these two books are. Unfortunately in this case it was so overwhelmingly to the disadvantage of McCormick that it brought to mind the scene from Brideshead Revisited were Charles Ryder returns to London with what he imagines are incredibly powerful and true paintings which are then revealed to be vacuous nonsense in a devastating demolition job of a review by his old friend Anthony Blanche. That is how I felt about Desert Boys - a work utterly without real emotion, substance or connection - a frothy concoction - which will deflate and leave behind...what?...I don't want to be rude - Mr. McCormick has the potential to write a good maybe even a great book - but if all he has to say is this nice, polite, inoffensive perspective then all the good writing in the world won't make it anything but a waste of time. That this novel is the best thing an author can come up with as a response to, or as an imagining of, the loss of someone you love in a pointless war is shocking, dispiriting and makes me want to weep.

Actually I have removed one star bringing this novel down to lowest rating because the more I thought about it's presentation of the death of his school friend in an idiotic and pointless war the more I have become annoyed at the anodyne presentation of this event and the authors emotions. Compared to the classics such as 'All Quiet on the Western Front' this novel is an insult, a polite antimacassar on the dirty reality of death in war. It is dishonest, afraid to speak any real truth lest he attract any criticism. This novel will never be banned or burned, nor the author reviled and driven to exile for telling the truth.

If you want the truth of war and the loss of a friend read David Diopp's 'At Night All Blood is Black'. That is a real novel, comparing Desert Boys to novels like Diopp's is to compare Twinkies to fresh cream eclairs.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dozen interconnected short stories offer moments in the life of Daley Kushner, a young man in a southern California desert town in Antelope Valley, where there are no longer any antelopes. His family, two boyhood friends, and the eventual fallings out between them, comprise the majority of stories, which read like a simple yet compelling novel. While a few stories toward the end offer perspectives from and about other characters, the majority are written in first- and third-person from Daley's perspective.

The writing is clean and even. Minor betrayals and revelations take on a larger impact. Daley's being gay is given a minor focus, except for one story. This is the sort of literary fiction that hedges away from being 'gay fiction' by focusing less on relationships and more on the interaction between family and friends. Events like a paintball battle and a family death are given prominence in one story, then brought up again as a secondary event or sidebar.

With so much apparently autobiographical material used, I wonder what other themes and settings McCormick will use in future books. He's pushed the concept of a short story collection into an interesting connected format.

[Eva • All Books Considered · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review originally posted at All Books Considered: 3.5 STARS

I'm not sure that I am really the best person to review a collection of short stories because that's not favorite medium to read. That being said, this collection felt more like ones that I have loved (such as The Tsar of Love and Techno) because all of the stories had a connection that could almost feel like a novel when read together. Ostensibly, the stories are all about growing up in the sprawling California desert outside of LA, in Antelope Valley. This didn't feel like fiction, which isn't bad but it did feel, at times, as though the author was trying too hard. I, too, grew up in the desert and I have a real affinity for it so this was pretty seamless for me and I read it one day. I do like Chris McCormick's voice and will look for more from him in the future.

I would recommend this to fans of collections of short stories, especially those that can't escape the author's upbringing. This collection was a great example of writing what you know but I will be curious to see that this author does next. Other favorite desert settings for me include Swerve and Gold Fame Citrus (which is probably my favorite read of this year so far even though it was released late last year) -- highly different genres but both incredible nonetheless.

She was beautiful in the way people call the desert beautiful, which is to say that although some people actually believed it, most of the time it was said in response to someone else's denigration of it.

[Garrett Rowlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

a few years ago, my mother and I went to Antelope Valley on Thanksgiving and/or other holidays to see my brother. She's gone, and I don't do that anymore, but reading Desert Boys by Chris McCormick brought back fading memories. It is a collection of short stories about three young men who, in the opening tale, have paintball fights in the open spaces around Palmdale. Each story touches on Palmdale while it also goes on to discuss the interrelations between the three, each of which has his own personality and issues. The main character and the book's narrator is Kush, a gay male whose Armenian mother has a brother in Glendale, California, a community with which I am familiar. Another young man is of Hispanic heritage, which makes him an outcast, and the other is burdened by the fact that his father abandoned the family.
This book's main pleasure is seeing how the stories double back and add texture to what we have read before. But it also must be said that, unlike a collection of unrelated stories, one also has the sensation of being in a repeating loop.

[willowdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel told in short stories. The first story is so very well written. I loved it. The rest of the book fills in the characters’ lives, loves, family, and friends. The setting, Antelope Valley, CA, is a character itself on the edge of the desert.

[Benjamin Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never read 2/3 of a book in one sitting until now, unless Dr. Seuss counts

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-crafted and beautifull written first collection of linked stories. Love this author.

[j · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think . desert

[William Koon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, Chris McCormick grew up in Antelope Valley. He also is gay and half Armenian. He reminds us of these facts in each of the stories in this collection –repeatedly and then again in case we forgot. Although he has a wonderful chance to create a vision of the new world of desert suburbia as wasteland, he doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t do much in any of these stories. Oh, in one he forces an unwanted kiss to his heterosexual best friend and then suffers about it when his friend is killed in one of the newer wars. He also uses the word “heteronormative” for the first time I have encountered it in a fiction piece. He also loves his mom who makes borek; is distant from his furniture selling father. Ho hum. If you think Antelope Valley is bleak, try finding something of value in these stories.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know firsthand the experience of the desert wasteland that is the A.V. This novel approaches the reality of a city who in still a lot of ways is a town in a honest, breathtaking way. McCormick captures the hopelessness of the youth here, and shines some light on some of the harsh realties of the Lancaster/Palmdale area. A stunning read that stuck with me, and almost made me cry in public.

[H · Rating 5 out of 5]

“No matter what we did or told ourselves for the rest of our lives, this moment revealed the truth: We were not tough boys.”

—

review: i absolutely tore through this. i didn’t realize it was a short story collection until after i finished, but that actually made me love it more—reading it as a novel had me obsessing over the passage of time, the doling out of information, and the way we seemed to circle the drain of the narrator’s life while still glossing over all the most important events; we were only shown the lead-up and aftermath. the details are so fleshed-out at such an intriguing pace that by the midpoint of the book, i felt like i was actually living in the characters’ world, like i was surrounded by them. i cried multiple times. so many parts of this book hit so hard and were so relatable that i honestly want to read it again immediately. beautifully honest and sincere, lives up to what it means to be human. maybe i’m biased (probably, tbh) but this is one of my favorite books i’ve read this year, or even in general. stunning, in every sense of the word. 10/10🌟

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite author!

[Grace Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Stars are Faggots, and Other Reasons to Leave” is one of my favorite stories I’ve read in a long time.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful first book. Linked short stories that all take place in California's Antelope Valley. Here's a little piece I wrote about it when it first came out, almost 9 years ago:

A few decades ago I spent a couple of hours in the Antelope Valley, up in the northern part of Los Angeles County. Those California counties seem as big as medium-sized European countries, and once you’re in the Antelope Valley it’s impossible to believe you’re only an hour or so from the glitz of L.A. I remember the place as windy and dusty and hot. Chris McCormick, in his first book, Desert Boys, a collection of tightly linked short stories, describes the small cities there as “shopping centers and tract homes” perched on a “biblical ecosystem lying beneath all that concrete.” The only image of the place that lingers in my mind is of a tattered plastic bag clinging to a Joshua tree, one of the oddest plants I’ve ever seen. One of the characters in McCormick’s book describes “the Joshua trees in the desert as dancers striking poses or deformed hands or barnacles–barnacles bunching from the smooth hull of a ship.” When I was there, I was looking for birds, but I don’t remember seeing any.

But that is one of the great pleasures for me of reading McCormick’s book–he knows the Antelope Valley, and he understands and loves the people who choose to stay there. Daley Kushner, the narrator-protagonist, wants out. He is smart and gay and has ambitions to write. He escapes to San Francisco, returning to the valley only reluctantly, terrified of introducing his partner to his Armenian mother. After her death he comes back to visit his father, a furniture salesman, and is pleasantly surprised to see “a surprising number of people” at a local production of “a modern, gay, Spanish adaptation of Romeo and Juliet titled Ramon y Julio.“

But other friends, the boys who came of age with Daley, choose to stay or hope to make their lives there. Robert Karinger, perhaps the most intriguing character in a book filled with some extraordinary ones, is Daley’s best friend, a poor kid from a single-parent home, with a hardworking and loving mother, and a little sister who gets the attention of the other boys. Though not Daley’s lover, Robert is clearly the first love of his life. He marries early, enlists, and dies in one of our desert wars. That loss, that emptiness, combines with the stark landscape to create the tone of Desert Boys.

Near the end of the book, Daley thinks, “When you spend a life leaving a place, only to return to it again and again, the returns become increasingly shameful.” It is that sense of shame that keeps this book from assuming the nostalgia that shapes so many stories of childhood. When Daley goes out into the desert, almost daring it to kill him, we know that he will survive, and we know that he will escape, even as he honors the people he has left behind, even as he teaches us that this dry and empty landscape can be loved. Chris McCormick’s great accomplishment in his first novel is that he is able to combine these places and emotions in deeply moving yet entirely unsentimental stories.



https://annarborobserver.com/articles...

[Gareth Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris McCormick serves up an interesting and very well written selection of stories in this promising debut.

The stories are set in the hard scrabble Antelope Valley where narrator Kush grows up and follow him to San Francisco, where he lives with boyfriend Lloyd, and is pursuing a career as a blogger. Mostly concerned with coming of age as well as coming to terms with his sexuality they are very good, also, at showing the small details of everyday life and how people get by. A childhood crush on best friend Robert Karinger, who dies in a desert war after he and Kush fall out over the war itself, is poignant and emotional. It was hard to shake the feeling that a lot of these stories were autobiographical but that also added weight to their authenticity. Personally I would like to see a full length novel from this very promising writer but this book comes as recommended.

A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for free advanced copy of this book in return for an impartial review.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Christopher McCormick, I grew up in the A.V. I went to the same high school (home of the Rebels) and had the same teachers. I played the same games in the desert, and had my own special spot by the aqueduct. I never met the author personally—he graduated the same year I was to matriculate—but I'm going to assume that Karinger, Kush and Watts are facets of him and his life, in the same way that they are of mine. This book may be fiction, but it represents the reality shared by a generation of boys and girls who lived in the High Desert and became adults during the first decade of this millennium. That's not to say that the themes aren't universal. It is a book about relationships between people more than it is about one man's relationship with a place. But it is a cathartic and necessary read for anyone who spent their "life leaving a place, only to return to it again and again." And for me personally, as my parents prepare to sell my childhood home, I'm finally ready to bid an almost fond farewell to the A.V., thanks to McCormick's fitting (perhaps loving) tribute.

[Keith Rosson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Desert Boys was certainly a readable enough collection of interconnected stories, and McCormick did a deft job of maneuvering the multiple characters throughout their repeat appearances, but apart from a few moments of velocity - the first story's a kicker for sure - this one just kind of went along its way. Might be one of those collections I come back to and see nuances I didn't find the first time, but for now it's solid work, if a little unmemorable.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am sorry I forgot to write a review of this while it was still fresh in my mind. I love the way this author writes. And I loved getting to know the characters layer by layer with each story in the book. In some ways, this book is like a collection of short stories -- each one could be read individually and independently of the others, and each story is enjoyable. But if you read all of the stories, you end up with a three-dimensional view of the characters, with each story adding another look at the characters you've met. At the end, I actually wanted to go back and re-read the book -- I was wondering if reading the stories in a different order would change the book or not. (In the end, you'd have the same understanding, but would your impression be colored by the order of information received?)

I was fortunate enough to hear the author speak when accepting the Stonewall Award at ALA Chicago last year, and I was so moved by what all of the authors said that I was eager to read every winner. I look forward to more from this talented author!

[Julia Kardon · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I have to say that this book has one of the most powerful opening chapters I've ever read. If you are on the fence about buying it, I challenge you to read the first chapter and not want to read more. And if you don't, I still think you'd be a better person for having read that first chapter. Essentially, this is a coming-of-age story centering around Kush and his circle of friends as they reach adulthood in Antelope Valley, a part of California as conservative and racist as anywhere in the South. It was incredibly moving to read about Kush's navigation of those spaces as he builds out his own identity, challenging the assumptions around him--about immigrants, the Iraq War, and most importantly, the LGTBQ community. His prose is exuberant and exquisite and also important, in what it says about people and identity and friendships. It is always so exciting to find a new writer , and I can't wait to read the next thing McCormick writes.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly nuanced and masterfully-told, DESERT BOYS banks on your unfamiliarity with the “desert and conservative hell-hole” that is Antelope Valley, California, and the vast—and even more unknown—terrain of men’s relationships with platonic male friends, their fathers, their uncles, their (queer) lovers, and, ultimately, themselves.

I read this through the first time rather quickly, and enjoyed it immensely; I enjoyed re-reading it a second time, carefully.

McCormick luxuriates and inhabits his sentences purposefully, nesting and stretching himself fully in between period marks. You can feel his deep respect for those who choose to thrive where they are sown, especially fellow artists who choose to create love—with real, living, breathing people—rather than dedicate a lifetime to one’s art, “a lie that lets love exist,” to the exclusion of the life beating all around you.

[Rob Blackwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a really good heart, but is kind of a mess as an actual book. The whole thing feels like a collection of short stories that got slapped together way later and character names unified with a chintzy ending thrown on to tie it together. It's very insistent upon itself and does a great deal of telling and re-telling. Every section seems to hammer down on the same obvious plot points before getting into what is really happening. The standout section of the book - the girl staying with her uncle on the alfalfa farm - has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the book, they just throw Kush in at the beginning and tail end to try to make it make sense in the collection.. It is beautiful, though. There are some very nice moments, but it just isn't a capital 'B' Book.

[Alyssa Forand · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was beautifully written and tackled formation of identity intricately. The way the author moved through time was fascinating and allowed Daley's life to unfold in a natural way. The timeline wasn't linear and was akin to the way I reflect on the memories and experiences of my life, jumping from moment to moment.

However, Desert Boys focused so much on the setting (Antelope Valley, CA) and left me lusting for more character and story development. As I closed the book I felt like I was "left hanging," but maybe that was McCormick's intention.

[Scorpio4mom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a good review writer but here I go. So I picked this one up from a dollar store. Its based in The Antelope Valley. I lived there in the mid 90s. I must say the story grabbed me in the first few pages. It's about a group of young kids that grew up in the valley and what and where each of them went on to do and live. It's a heart warming book. Dealing with war, being gay, immigrants, politics and of course friendship. I didn't give it 5 stars cause I'm not much into politics and those sections were just plain boring to me. But over all the story us cute.

[E. N. Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t a long book but it is hard to read when it’s another variation of your own story.

No one really talks about being from the AV. No one talked about QHHS and their racist mascot and powder blue uniforms. I didn’t know about redlining until last year when I started working in Planning Services and attended a forum.

But all of it, however fictitiously presented, is real. For everyone who lived there and dreamed of leaving, and for everyone who stayed and was told they could’ve done better.

The desert shaped us all, and in it we all just tried to survive.

[Brandon Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

The is amazing on whichever level you like: the structure is constantly, excitingly playful; the writing itself crisp and immersive; and man, it has deep feeling and an unassuming wisdom. It's autobiographical in the best way possible--cringingly precise at times, it lets you look into yourself and relate, understand better after, and forgive things that still linger. Hit me really deep. It's just a really wonderful book and I couldn't recommend it more.

[A.V. Shener · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was 4 stars, but the writing was 5.
Although some parts felt like an exercise in writing (different narratives and whatnot) I was completely captivated.
The little desert town felt real, the short stories as well.
I loved how minimalistic and to the point the writing was. This is an author who knows his craft.
Having read this in a time of uncertainty and outrage in the US about race and equality, reading Desert Boys felt important, meaningful.

Well done, Chris McCormick.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. A coming of age story focusing on a gay boy in California did not sound interesting. The book itself is a little brazen and pretentious but the premise is modern, exciting, and self aware. This story felt close to home and was pulled off well. Chris fleshed out his characters well and kept me invested the whole way through. It was an emotional and gripping ride that everyone in a small town should read.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the thing I liked most about this book was its structure, which was like nothing I’ve ever read. It was associative without feeling like stream of consciousness? Stories were sort of hidden in little corners of event, without their being a plot. It’s focus was completely its characters. I loved that.

It definitely was not the book I thought it would be per se, but I really enjoyed it