Synopses & Reviews
"Daring, unusual... and startlingly fresh" (Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio), Boys of Alabama announced Genevieve Hudson's place in the canon of the southern gothic alongside Donna Tartt and Harper Lee. Newly arrived in Alabama, Max falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power. Although his German parents don't know what to make of a South pining for the past, shy Max thrives after being taken in by the football team. But when he meets fishnet-wearing Pan in physics class, they embark on a quixotic, consuming relationship. Writing in "prose that is always imaginative and sensual" (Sarah Neilson, Believer), Hudson offers a complex portrait of masculinity, religion, immigration, and the adolescent pressures that require total conformity.
Review
“Boys of Alabama brilliantly reinvents the Southern Gothic....An absolutely magical novel.” Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
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“A gripping, uncanny, and queer exploration of being a boy in America, told with detail that dazzles and disturbs.” Michelle Tea, author of Against Memoir
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“Genevieve Hudson dismantles and spins a new category of fairy tale for us, one that's equal parts dirt and splendor. A glinting, dark beauty. An incantation.” T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girl
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“This novel is a love song to outsiders of all kinds, a queer love story about the ways we find to heal ourselves and each other, and proof that there can be magic amid the burdens of masculinity.” Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me
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“Genevieve Hudson creates a new American erotics of longing and belonging, flush with want and desire, hope and home, translation and transformation.” Matt Bell, author of Scrapper
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“Hudson goes right to a place where violence comes from — uncomfortably close to desire for magic, God, sex, whatever might actually heal us — and doesn't turn away.” Kristin Dombek, author of The Selfishness of Others
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“One of the finest — and weirdest! — first novels I've read in quite some long time.” Tom Bissell, author of Apostle and coauthor of The Disaster Artist
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“Boys of Alabama perfectly captures the magic and inevitable heartache of young lust.” Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light
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“[Depicts] a brand of Southern-fried masculinity that is immediately recognizable and startlingly fresh. This is an exquisite book.” Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer
Review
“Reminds us that behind so many of America's most rigid beliefs lies the lonely human heart: twitchy, slippery, alive.” Mikkel Rosengaard, author of The Invention of Ana
About the Author
Originally from Alabama, Genevieve Hudson has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, MacDowell, Caldera Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. She was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Pretend We Live Here: Stories and lives in Portland, Oregon.