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Boys Like Us
Boys Like Us Trilogy, Book 1 – Peter McGehee’s debut novel is a rompish, bed-hopping affair – a modern comedy of manners – in which our twentysomething protagonist, Zero MacNoo performs all the rituals – sexual, familial, and grievous – required of urban gay males in the early 1990s. It is a remarkable comedy about life, love, and friendship in the age of AIDS.
Zero, an Arkansas expat who has swapped out Little Rock for the cool contemporary tones of Toronto gay life, is perplexed by the curveballs of fate. His best friend has been diagnosed with AIDS; Zero is frantic to organize a circle of support. And when Arkansas also calls, it’s to support his mother’s second marriage and confrontations with the zany array of crazed Southerners he calls family ensue.
Funny, bittersweet, outrageous, and moving, Zero’s adventures make up the first part of Boys Like Us trilogy. This new edition is accompanied by introductions from Dr Raymond-Jean Frontain and long-time collaborator Fiji Robinson.
“An utterly delightful book. I enjoyed every word of it!” — Quentin Crisp
“… a gem of a novel. Boys Like Us is funny, sexy, tender, and touching – often in the same sentence.” — Larry Duplechan
“As it celebrates the strength and staying power of gay friendships, Peter McGehee’s Boys Like Us goes out of its way to show you a good time – and you won’t hate yourself in the morning.” — New York Native
“ Boys Like Us is an affable, enjoyable story … McGehee has the ability, through an ingratiating style and witty observations, to transform Zero’s everyday life into something we care about.” — Michael Bronski
“Accomplishes what may seem a humorous romp in the face of widespread death.” — Library Journal
Zero, an Arkansas expat who has swapped out Little Rock for the cool contemporary tones of Toronto gay life, is perplexed by the curveballs of fate. His best friend has been diagnosed with AIDS; Zero is frantic to organize a circle of support. And when Arkansas also calls, it’s to support his mother’s second marriage and confrontations with the zany array of crazed Southerners he calls family ensue.
Funny, bittersweet, outrageous, and moving, Zero’s adventures make up the first part of Boys Like Us trilogy. This new edition is accompanied by introductions from Dr Raymond-Jean Frontain and long-time collaborator Fiji Robinson.
“An utterly delightful book. I enjoyed every word of it!” — Quentin Crisp
“… a gem of a novel. Boys Like Us is funny, sexy, tender, and touching – often in the same sentence.” — Larry Duplechan
“As it celebrates the strength and staying power of gay friendships, Peter McGehee’s Boys Like Us goes out of its way to show you a good time – and you won’t hate yourself in the morning.” — New York Native
“ Boys Like Us is an affable, enjoyable story … McGehee has the ability, through an ingratiating style and witty observations, to transform Zero’s everyday life into something we care about.” — Michael Bronski
“Accomplishes what may seem a humorous romp in the face of widespread death.” — Library Journal
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Peter McGehee
8 books1 followerBorn in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Frank Thomas and Julia Ann May McGehee, Peter moved with his family to Little Rock when he was six. He was the second of three children. McGehee played the trombone at Parkview High School in Little Rock where he graduated in 1973. McGehee studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas before moving to San Francisco to work in theatre where he graduated from the University of San Francisco. While living in San Francisco, he wrote his first play and first comedic musical revue The Quinlan Sisters. that is where he later met Canadian activist Douglas Wilson, who became his partner. He moved to Saskatoon in 1980 to be with Douglas, and subsequently the couple moved to Toronto in 1982.
He published his first novella, Beyond Happiness in 1985 and premiered his second revue, The Fabulous Sirs in 1987.
In 1988, McGehee and Wilson were both diagnosed HIV-positive. McGehee subsequently wrote two novels, Boys Like Us and Sweetheart, and a book of short stories, The IQ Zoo. Boys Like Us was published in 1991, shortly before McGehee's death of AIDS-related causes; Sweetheart and The IQ Zoo were both published posthumously.
Using notes that McGehee had written in preparation for his third novel, Wilson subsequently wrote Labour of Love before his own death in 1992. That novel was published in 1993.
He published his first novella, Beyond Happiness in 1985 and premiered his second revue, The Fabulous Sirs in 1987.
In 1988, McGehee and Wilson were both diagnosed HIV-positive. McGehee subsequently wrote two novels, Boys Like Us and Sweetheart, and a book of short stories, The IQ Zoo. Boys Like Us was published in 1991, shortly before McGehee's death of AIDS-related causes; Sweetheart and The IQ Zoo were both published posthumously.
Using notes that McGehee had written in preparation for his third novel, Wilson subsequently wrote Labour of Love before his own death in 1992. That novel was published in 1993.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 11, 2023
A bittersweet and perfectly preposterous portrait of what life was like for friends, family, lovers and “boys like us” in the age of AIDS. Why be with a hero when you can be with lead character Zero?
September 21, 2009
[These notes made in 1992; I read the Toronto HarperCollins edition of 1991:]. I knew Peter very slightly: a sadly mischievous, wry little man who spent some time at the Gay Archives when I worked there in 89/90. He was only 36 when he died last year of AIDS. It is therefore something of a temptation to sentimentalize one's reaction to his novel, something he - given his unsentimental work - would doubtless have regarded with horror. The novel is brief, fast reading, and often smile-provoking. One guesses that our author, like his protagonist's black nanny Stellrita, is given to overstatement for the sake of amusement, but still somehow speaks the truth. One also guesses that the novel leans heavily on autobiogaphy. At the very least, the two main settings - the Toronto gay scene, and a childhood home in Arkansas - are ones that McGehee knew personally. The structure of the book is simple: Zero MacNoo (!), our first person narrator, sets the scene in Toronto, goes to his mother's remarriage in Arkansas, then returns to Toronto, where a number of important things have changed. At the beginning, we are introduced to his cast of characters: his close friend, Randy, an actor who is succumbing to AIDS; his ex-lover David, with whom he has broken up after eight years; his current lover Clay, a Bay St. lawyer with whom he has a passionate sex life, but with whom he feels little in common. There are also two friends - Searcy, a drag queen, and Snookums, with whom he works at the office of a journal (did Peter write for Xtra? almost certainly). We get just enough sketches of these people to realize that Zero is feeling dissatisfied with just about every part of his life, when his mother calls to announce her impending remarriage. On a hair-raising turbulent flight Zero, convinced he's about to die, calls Clay and leaves a hysterical "I love you" message. Then things swing into Southern Gothic mode - Zero's family are as fine a cast of oddities as you could imagine, starting with mother, who sleeps with her married lover on the eve of her highly unceremonious marriage to another man. There's a mad father, the aforementioned Stellrita - oh and all sorts of other damaged people. Another traveller beween Zero's two worlds - the improbably named Jesus Las Vegas - brings the news that Randy has collapsed and is in hospital. Zero hotfoots it back to Toronto, to discover that Clay has bought a condo for the two of them, and that his drag queen friend Searcy is out of work because the female-impersonators' club is being closed down. Randy recovers somewhat, but falls in love with someone else, and Zero starts to feel unneeded. Clay kicks him out when he refusees to go and live in the condo. Snookums sets him up with a new apartment - at David's house. And it all ends abruptly - "slice of life," they call it.
March 15, 2021
My uncle wrote this book, so my opinion is biased in that I really enjoyed reading the embellished stories about my family. He passed away before I was born so learning about his stories was especially interesting to me. On a not so personal & biased note, this is a great book to read about the life of a gay man in the 80s & early 90s.
April 14, 2022
ZERO MACNOO
Several years ago, I picked up a copy of Boys like Us by Peter McGehee in the used book section at Giovanni’s Room. It was a paperback in the Stonewall Inn Editions series, so I knew it wasn’t to be shunned. Also, on the shelf next to Boys like Us was another novel by McGehee, Sweetheart, in hardcover, published by St. Martin’s Press, the publisher of the Stonewall Inn Editions. The jacket blurb for Sweetheart said that it was a continuation of the story told in Boys like Us. I bought both of them. McGehee immensely entertained me and broke my heart. I tend to be a completist with authors that I really like, so I obtained McGehee’s Beyond Happiness: The Intimate Memoirs of Billy Lee Belle, which has been called both a novella and a story collection, and The I.Q. Zoo, another story collection, as well as Doug Wilson’s Labour of Love, which bills itself as a sequel to the first two novels based on characters created by Peter McGehee.
McGehee begins Boys like Us with these lines:
I lose people.
Friends, family, lovers.
Sometimes they come back; sometimes not.
Zero MacNoo, the thirtyish narrator, tells us the above as he goes to look in on his best friend, Randy, who is ill with AIDS, so we know that the time period is the late 1980s/early 1990s. Zero’s world in Toronto is primarily a gay one and is comprised of, as he has just said, assorted friends, family (chosen family, that is), and lovers, including Randy, Clay, David, Searcy, Snookums, and Jesus Las Vegas. As with most groups of gay guys, at least in the period of the novel, wit, sarcasm, and irony are bandied about right and left. McGehee is a master of the kind of fast and snappy dialogue at which clever gay men are expert. For example, when Zero discovers Jesus Las Vegas at his dressing table in a Bette Midler costume, he says to Jesus, “I didn’t know you did her,” to which Jesus replies, “I do anybody.” Zero quips back with “So I’ve noticed.”
When Zero’s mother notifies him that she is getting married for the second time, he reluctantly takes a journey back to Arkansas, where he grew up and from where he had escaped, he hopes, forever. After a hysterically funny plane ride, Zero lands in Arkansas and we are in a completely different world. Zero isn’t at a loss for words to describe it for us: “Big oak trees line the street, their branches gnarled, crooked, deformed by the humid summers and generations of deceit and misguided judgment. Ah, the Tennessee Williams in me . . .”
Zero’s cast of characters in Toronto is completely sane and rational compared to his blood family, a tribe of certifiably insane Southern wackos who are scary, funny, and tedious, all at the same time. Zero describes his Mom: “She gives me her classic Southern belle smile, a perfect combination of innocence and viciousness.” He observes of Southern society: “All the service employees at the Little Rock Club happen, in the grand tradition of the South, to be black.” The Southern character who probably means the most to Zero is Stellrita, his deceased grandmother’s black maid, who was his grandfather’s mistress and to whom the old family property was left when his grandfather died. After Zero’s fulfills his familial duties down South, we heave a sigh of relief when he gets back to Toronto.
My favorite characters in Boys like Us are, in Toronto, Searcy, the diva drag queen with a more than generous heart, and, in Arkansas, Stellrita, the 120-year-old chain-smoking black woman who sits on the front porch of her big house all day and night, watching the white folks go by.
Toward the beginning of Boys like Us, Randy says to Zero: “Just look me in the eye and tell me I don’t mean more to you than Clay or David or all the rest of’em put together.” As the novel progresses, Zero learns that what Randy has said to him is true. Randy gets well enough to go to Vancouver and work on a movie. Zero, who senses the loss he’s going to feel from Randy’s absence, concludes the novel and this segment of his story with
I lose people.
Sometimes they come back; sometimes not.
If you are interested in finding out what happens to Zero and his crew, go on and read Sweetheart and then Labour of Love. Sweetheart is also narrated by Zero and includes another bonkers plane trip to Arkansas, while Labour of Love, narrated by David, includes an unforgettable road trip to Zero’s family down South. The contrasts between the Toronto gay world and the Southern straight world are as masterfully portrayed as in Boys like Us. And, particularly, to my delight, Searcy and Stellrita play bigger roles in the second and third novels than they do in the first.
Beyond Happiness is sixty-two pages of stories, complete in themselves, but that also read like eccentric, there is no other word, trial runs for Boys like Us. The I.Q. Zoo is a collection of short stories of which any gay writer would be proud.
Peter McGehee was lost to AIDS on September 13, 1991 at the age of 35.
Several years ago, I picked up a copy of Boys like Us by Peter McGehee in the used book section at Giovanni’s Room. It was a paperback in the Stonewall Inn Editions series, so I knew it wasn’t to be shunned. Also, on the shelf next to Boys like Us was another novel by McGehee, Sweetheart, in hardcover, published by St. Martin’s Press, the publisher of the Stonewall Inn Editions. The jacket blurb for Sweetheart said that it was a continuation of the story told in Boys like Us. I bought both of them. McGehee immensely entertained me and broke my heart. I tend to be a completist with authors that I really like, so I obtained McGehee’s Beyond Happiness: The Intimate Memoirs of Billy Lee Belle, which has been called both a novella and a story collection, and The I.Q. Zoo, another story collection, as well as Doug Wilson’s Labour of Love, which bills itself as a sequel to the first two novels based on characters created by Peter McGehee.
McGehee begins Boys like Us with these lines:
I lose people.
Friends, family, lovers.
Sometimes they come back; sometimes not.
Zero MacNoo, the thirtyish narrator, tells us the above as he goes to look in on his best friend, Randy, who is ill with AIDS, so we know that the time period is the late 1980s/early 1990s. Zero’s world in Toronto is primarily a gay one and is comprised of, as he has just said, assorted friends, family (chosen family, that is), and lovers, including Randy, Clay, David, Searcy, Snookums, and Jesus Las Vegas. As with most groups of gay guys, at least in the period of the novel, wit, sarcasm, and irony are bandied about right and left. McGehee is a master of the kind of fast and snappy dialogue at which clever gay men are expert. For example, when Zero discovers Jesus Las Vegas at his dressing table in a Bette Midler costume, he says to Jesus, “I didn’t know you did her,” to which Jesus replies, “I do anybody.” Zero quips back with “So I’ve noticed.”
When Zero’s mother notifies him that she is getting married for the second time, he reluctantly takes a journey back to Arkansas, where he grew up and from where he had escaped, he hopes, forever. After a hysterically funny plane ride, Zero lands in Arkansas and we are in a completely different world. Zero isn’t at a loss for words to describe it for us: “Big oak trees line the street, their branches gnarled, crooked, deformed by the humid summers and generations of deceit and misguided judgment. Ah, the Tennessee Williams in me . . .”
Zero’s cast of characters in Toronto is completely sane and rational compared to his blood family, a tribe of certifiably insane Southern wackos who are scary, funny, and tedious, all at the same time. Zero describes his Mom: “She gives me her classic Southern belle smile, a perfect combination of innocence and viciousness.” He observes of Southern society: “All the service employees at the Little Rock Club happen, in the grand tradition of the South, to be black.” The Southern character who probably means the most to Zero is Stellrita, his deceased grandmother’s black maid, who was his grandfather’s mistress and to whom the old family property was left when his grandfather died. After Zero’s fulfills his familial duties down South, we heave a sigh of relief when he gets back to Toronto.
My favorite characters in Boys like Us are, in Toronto, Searcy, the diva drag queen with a more than generous heart, and, in Arkansas, Stellrita, the 120-year-old chain-smoking black woman who sits on the front porch of her big house all day and night, watching the white folks go by.
Toward the beginning of Boys like Us, Randy says to Zero: “Just look me in the eye and tell me I don’t mean more to you than Clay or David or all the rest of’em put together.” As the novel progresses, Zero learns that what Randy has said to him is true. Randy gets well enough to go to Vancouver and work on a movie. Zero, who senses the loss he’s going to feel from Randy’s absence, concludes the novel and this segment of his story with
I lose people.
Sometimes they come back; sometimes not.
If you are interested in finding out what happens to Zero and his crew, go on and read Sweetheart and then Labour of Love. Sweetheart is also narrated by Zero and includes another bonkers plane trip to Arkansas, while Labour of Love, narrated by David, includes an unforgettable road trip to Zero’s family down South. The contrasts between the Toronto gay world and the Southern straight world are as masterfully portrayed as in Boys like Us. And, particularly, to my delight, Searcy and Stellrita play bigger roles in the second and third novels than they do in the first.
Beyond Happiness is sixty-two pages of stories, complete in themselves, but that also read like eccentric, there is no other word, trial runs for Boys like Us. The I.Q. Zoo is a collection of short stories of which any gay writer would be proud.
Peter McGehee was lost to AIDS on September 13, 1991 at the age of 35.
September 28, 2015
I laughed out loud in a few parts, which was good, but the book was as light as air. The plot, details and characters all seem to float quickly away.
The main good point of the book is the setting in the late 1980's/early 1990's of Toronto gay life and that comes through well with characters going to Boots and staying at the Selby Hotel. The book takes places in and around AIDS, not because of AIDS, which I also enjoyed. These people are living, not dying.
In an effort to create a book not weighted down by the heaviness of AIDS during it's harshest run, the author seems to lose track of reality.
The main good point of the book is the setting in the late 1980's/early 1990's of Toronto gay life and that comes through well with characters going to Boots and staying at the Selby Hotel. The book takes places in and around AIDS, not because of AIDS, which I also enjoyed. These people are living, not dying.
In an effort to create a book not weighted down by the heaviness of AIDS during it's harshest run, the author seems to lose track of reality.
April 18, 2019
This was the first book I read that struck me as more real, more personal, more interesting than my own life was at the time. It was perfect for the time, and now, as almost 20 years have passed I think of it as a glittering jewel of my own past. Today it evokes lost friends and a lost time for me. I have to be careful when I read his books. I found a signed first edition on Ebay a few years ago. Pity he is all but forgotten.
March 30, 2023
This book was okay. It read more like a collection of columns or essays than an actual novel. It definitely relied more on dialog than action. It was a quick, easy read.
February 12, 2024
I am in an online book club that features books where the authors have died of aids. This was a terrific fast read. It’s insightful, heartbreaking and I could barely put it down. It is a trilogy, and I will plan to read the other two books. The third book in the trilogy was completed by the authors lover, based on notes that the author posthumously left.
December 4, 2023
A light read but very unlikeable characters.
January 10, 2011
A fast read (less than 24 hours, start to finish, with sleeping in between) and an interesting look into the life of gay men in Toronto (and Arkansas) in the 1980s/early 1990s. Very heavy on the dialogue, which made it very different from most books I read. Having recently processed the Peter McGehee fonds at work, this semi-autobiographical account of his life was particularly fascinating to me. I'm surprised I didn't encounter it in any of my gender studies-type classes but I'm also glad I read it now.
July 25, 2016
An often very funny book, but oddly two unrelated stories, one in Toronto and the other in Arkansas. Somewhat surprised it was published by (the now defunct) St. Martin's Press, which usually went for better written books. I hope Randy is still with us, and well.
Read
September 23, 2009I felt like I understood this novel only because I've been reading up on issues gay men deal with; very little resonated because of the writing.
April 28, 2015
Light heart ed over the top campy was a fun read ending a little weak
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews