Ponyboy

Ponyboy pops pills, snorts speed, and attempts art as he comes to terms with his transmasculinity and addiction in Paris and Berlin, in the electric debut from Eliot Duncan.

<p><b>LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2023</b><br><b><br>'Incendiary . . . A uniquely trans story' </b><i>Dazed</i><br><b>'Gutting and glittery'</b> <i>Nylon</i><br><b>'Eliot Duncan's melancholic transboy swagger sparkles . . . An astonishing first novel' </b>ANDREA LAWLOR<br><br>In the first of three acts, <i>Ponyboy</i>'s titular narrator - a pill-popping, speed-snorting, trans-masculine lightning bolt - unravels in his Paris apartment. Ponyboy is caught in a messy love triangle between Baby, a lesbian painter who can't see herself being with someone trans, and Toni, a childhood friend who can actually see Ponyboy for who he is.<br><br>Strung out, Ponyboy follows Baby to Berlin where he sinks deeper into drugs and falls for Gabriel, all the while pursued by a megalomaniacal photographer hungry for the next hot thing. As his relationships crumble, Ponyboy unexpectedly wakes up alone in Iowa, his childhood home. Now Ponyboy must finally choose a name.<br><br>An evocative novel of art and addiction, self-destruction and re-construction, <i>Ponyboy</i> thrums with the joys, aches and pains of becoming who you are meant to be.</p>