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Rent Boy
A noir tour-de-force set in the world of hustlers from "one of America's darkest and funniest chroniclers." ( The Guardian )
It's New York City, 1981, and everyone wants to be at the Emerson Club, from Cindy Crawford to Cindy Adams; from Famous Roger, one-time lion of the talk shows, to Sandy Miller, the “downtown” writer with the tattoos and the leather; from Lauren Hutton to the art star who does the thing with the broken plates. Everyone, that is, except Danny. Danny just works there, waiting tables to put himself through architecture school, turning tricks on the side. And when he’s not on the clock, he’s recording the sexual, aesthetic, and financial transactions that make up his life, in gruesome detail. But even a clever boy like Danny can wind up on the menu. Blinded by love for his fellow rent boy, Chip—as gorgeous as he is reckless—Danny is about to learn that there’s more than one way to turn your body into cash, and that cynicism is no defense when the real scalpels come out. A gimlet-eyed crime novel with an inventively filthy mind, Rent Boy is Gary Indiana at his most outrageous—and his best.
It's New York City, 1981, and everyone wants to be at the Emerson Club, from Cindy Crawford to Cindy Adams; from Famous Roger, one-time lion of the talk shows, to Sandy Miller, the “downtown” writer with the tattoos and the leather; from Lauren Hutton to the art star who does the thing with the broken plates. Everyone, that is, except Danny. Danny just works there, waiting tables to put himself through architecture school, turning tricks on the side. And when he’s not on the clock, he’s recording the sexual, aesthetic, and financial transactions that make up his life, in gruesome detail. But even a clever boy like Danny can wind up on the menu. Blinded by love for his fellow rent boy, Chip—as gorgeous as he is reckless—Danny is about to learn that there’s more than one way to turn your body into cash, and that cynicism is no defense when the real scalpels come out. A gimlet-eyed crime novel with an inventively filthy mind, Rent Boy is Gary Indiana at his most outrageous—and his best.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Gary Indiana
72 books139 followersGary Hoisington, known as Gary Indiana, was an American writer, actor, artist, and cultural critic. He served as the art critic for the Village Voice weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988. Indiana is best known for his classic American true-crime trilogy, Resentment, Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story, and Depraved Indifference, chronicling the less permanent state of "depraved indifference" that characterized American life at the millennium's end. In the introduction to the recently re-published edition of Three Month Fever, critic Christopher Glazek has coined the phrase 'deflationary realism' to describe Indiana's writing, in contrast to the magical realism or hysterical realism of other contemporary writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
June 27, 2024
Much like the male prostitutes who populate this novel, I was quickly in and out of this in one night.
And it's a good thing too, because I would not have wanted to spend a single second longer in this bleak and grimy world of New York City's seedy gay nightclubs, soulless male hustlers (aka "rent boys"), lonely johns, and desperate junkies in the early 1990's. Let's just say this turned out to be a "Happy Pride Month" selection only in the most grimly ironic sense.
Those who've been following me for a while know I'm far from a pearl-clutching prude. But I found this to be FILTHY in every sense of the word. If this were a movie, the ushers would have been handing out barf bags at the front door.
There are some "trashy" reads that are deliciously raunchy and pulpy and fun, even titillating at times. And then there are those "trashy" reads that are just vile and gross, reveling in their nihilism and ability to shock and disgust. This book was very much an example of the latter.
It's too bad, too, because author Gary Indiana (not his birth name - ha!) definitely knows his way around a sentence. There is some blistering satire and pithy writing scattered throughout, and I can appreciate his ambitious attempt to examine the lives of male sex workers with a candid and empathetic eye, while also questioning and condemning a capitalistic society in which everything and everyone becomes a crude commodity to be bought and sold.
Indiana displays an acerbic wit that probably made/makes him a provocative and engaging essayist. But as a novel, this is a meandering mess, dragged down by weak character development and poor pacing. We don't even get a hint of a plot until well past the halfway point, and even then it's pretty far-fetched and absurd. NOT RECOMMENDED.
I think I've overheard a million john life stories and another million whore life stories and once you plow off the bullshit the john's story's always "I'm lonely" and the whore's story's always "I came from a dysfunctional family."
And it's a good thing too, because I would not have wanted to spend a single second longer in this bleak and grimy world of New York City's seedy gay nightclubs, soulless male hustlers (aka "rent boys"), lonely johns, and desperate junkies in the early 1990's. Let's just say this turned out to be a "Happy Pride Month" selection only in the most grimly ironic sense.
Those who've been following me for a while know I'm far from a pearl-clutching prude. But I found this to be FILTHY in every sense of the word. If this were a movie, the ushers would have been handing out barf bags at the front door.
There are some "trashy" reads that are deliciously raunchy and pulpy and fun, even titillating at times. And then there are those "trashy" reads that are just vile and gross, reveling in their nihilism and ability to shock and disgust. This book was very much an example of the latter.
It's too bad, too, because author Gary Indiana (not his birth name - ha!) definitely knows his way around a sentence. There is some blistering satire and pithy writing scattered throughout, and I can appreciate his ambitious attempt to examine the lives of male sex workers with a candid and empathetic eye, while also questioning and condemning a capitalistic society in which everything and everyone becomes a crude commodity to be bought and sold.
Indiana displays an acerbic wit that probably made/makes him a provocative and engaging essayist. But as a novel, this is a meandering mess, dragged down by weak character development and poor pacing. We don't even get a hint of a plot until well past the halfway point, and even then it's pretty far-fetched and absurd. NOT RECOMMENDED.
I think I've overheard a million john life stories and another million whore life stories and once you plow off the bullshit the john's story's always "I'm lonely" and the whore's story's always "I came from a dysfunctional family."
November 23, 2022
The titular rent boy is writing letters; the recipient is largely unknown. The voice here is brilliant, free flowing and smooth. The details from this young man’s life are salacious and quirky.
So far so good. Then the plot veers off into an organ donor crime drama. What? Is the organ donor motif a metaphor for a rent boy — where money forces people to part with precious aspects of themselves? Who knows. I was distracted looking for some relevance, and would much rather have learned more about Chip, and Danny.
Four stars for the voice.
So far so good. Then the plot veers off into an organ donor crime drama. What? Is the organ donor motif a metaphor for a rent boy — where money forces people to part with precious aspects of themselves? Who knows. I was distracted looking for some relevance, and would much rather have learned more about Chip, and Danny.
Four stars for the voice.
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September 19, 2023sliding from social realism to horror over the course of 128pp w/ no clear transition point between the two is the literary equiv of going over niagara falls in a barrel. respect
July 11, 2023
This was an intense novella. Told in first person in a letter to a former lover, Danny/Mark/Billy depending on who he was with, chronicles his life as a waiter at the nightclub for the rich and famous where drugs and sex were plentiful, and as male prostitute, or rent boy, in 1981 in NYC. Danny shares the sometimes repulsive details of his trick’s fetishes and desires, and the addictions and excesses of patrons and friends without judgement, aware always of the emptiness and meaninglessness of their lives.
This is a raw book and about halfway through I almost put it down, but it was about halfway through that the story took a shocking, dark turn and I’m glad I kept with it.
This is not a book for everyone, sensitive readers might not like it, but Danny is a voice that will stay with me.
This is a raw book and about halfway through I almost put it down, but it was about halfway through that the story took a shocking, dark turn and I’m glad I kept with it.
This is not a book for everyone, sensitive readers might not like it, but Danny is a voice that will stay with me.
July 12, 2012
While in San Francisco last week on a search for collectible gay fiction I found this at Bolerium Books, the world's largest inventory of used gay books for sale. It looked like a quick read covering the male hustler scene in contemporary (1990s) New York. The first half of the book is exactly that, and it was so funny and bitchy and real and deeply-felt that I was actually laughing out loud. The rent boy Danny (or Mike, or Billy, or whatever) drifts through his self-realized meaningless life, offering hilarious observations about his tricks, the bar scene, NY living, and sex. The graphic passages on sex are some of the best I've read anywhere not because of their explicit eroticism---nicely done thank you very much---but in the way the author non-judgmentally presents sex as a healthy normal activity, in all its kinky forms. This is fresh, not often seen in serious gay literature, in contrast to pornography let's say.
Then at halfway through the book Danny hooks up with another hustler and is drawn into a criminal situation involving organ theft. This is quite an unexpected and unforeshadowed shift in direction. Unfortunately it doesn't really work re: plot development, but it does effectively provide an opportunity for Danny to change his life---if he wants to. I won't spoil the plot with further details. For a few pages (this is a short book after all) there is true suspense.
In the second half you will also find plenty of social and political commentary which, if you are a liberal anti-Republican, like me, will warm your heart. A shadowy former trick of Danny's also partially emerges as a recipient of his letters of which the book itself appears to be a compilation made sometime after...well, no plot spoilers here.
I look forward to reading two or three more of Gary Indiana's books; his style is a toned down Dennis Cooper and doesn't cause as much brain damage as Cooper does.
Then at halfway through the book Danny hooks up with another hustler and is drawn into a criminal situation involving organ theft. This is quite an unexpected and unforeshadowed shift in direction. Unfortunately it doesn't really work re: plot development, but it does effectively provide an opportunity for Danny to change his life---if he wants to. I won't spoil the plot with further details. For a few pages (this is a short book after all) there is true suspense.
In the second half you will also find plenty of social and political commentary which, if you are a liberal anti-Republican, like me, will warm your heart. A shadowy former trick of Danny's also partially emerges as a recipient of his letters of which the book itself appears to be a compilation made sometime after...well, no plot spoilers here.
I look forward to reading two or three more of Gary Indiana's books; his style is a toned down Dennis Cooper and doesn't cause as much brain damage as Cooper does.
June 27, 2023
One of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read??? I could not, in good conscience, recommend this to anyone without having like a very long conversation beforehand. Maybe when I gather my thoughts I’ll write an actual review, but I’ll leave this for now.
July 14, 2024
— "I can tell you what the cocktail lounge at the Ramada's like, think of dark Formica and grainy indirect lighting and emotions collecting in front of you in the little puddles formed by your cocktail glass, islands and continents of feelings you don't know how to place any more, and voices, the so-called human element, that remind you you're chained to the earth by a million little details: the world has fancy intellectual names for all these manacles and torture devices holding you down, but they might as well be called Mavis and Stanley and Chip, or the boy who ran away from home to learn fear, or the boy you love beyond anything who brings you a souvenir from his trip to Easter Island with the one he wants to fuck instead of you, or just a client whose loneliness and despair jut out on his face in the seconds before he comes: to me they were faces scribbled in watercolor drooling down the window, drizzling into Eighth Avenue and puddling up with all the human wreckage stashed in waterlogged corners of construction scaffolds."
November 4, 2023
Completamente folle.
Noir a tinte omo ricchissimo di contenuto vietato ai minori e anche ai deboli di stomaco, sembra voler ricalcare Dennis Cooper (che pure nomina! Il protagonista dice di aver acquistato un suo libro) e finirò anche io per mettervi presto le mani sopra, mi sa. Spero. This is my cup of tea.
Noir a tinte omo ricchissimo di contenuto vietato ai minori e anche ai deboli di stomaco, sembra voler ricalcare Dennis Cooper (che pure nomina! Il protagonista dice di aver acquistato un suo libro) e finirò anche io per mettervi presto le mani sopra, mi sa. Spero. This is my cup of tea.
February 13, 2024
"saltburn was fucking CRAZY" what is fucking CRAZY is that you clearly have never picked up a gary indiana book ?????? SO shallow and SO fucking pointless and just SO fucking weird and i LOVED every second of it. seriously the most disgusting shit that i have ever read and yet i reread it at least once a month gary indiana you have radicalised me . Beautiful. genuinely PERFECT. if i could direct any film adaptation of a book i would fuck Rent Boy UP !!!!!!!!! Quentin tarantino would have absolutely NAILED a rent boy film though jesus christ. so what is my takeaway from this book??? Nothing!!! Is there any meaning?? Nope!!!! Was it sick??? EXTREMELY!!!! Such a disturbingly beautiful book. my inspo genuinely gary you are a GENIUS except when i think abiut it youre just fucking troubled. will write a readable review that isnt just me vomiting words out when i am up because this changed my life. for the better????? No!!! It has made me worse!!! i still love it though. this is such a word barf but theres no other way to capture this fucking book. do i recommend it ???? Not proudly!!!!! said with Love
December 15, 2023
the cover is the best part of it
April 18, 2023
A fast-paced, fairly interesting look into a world filled with sex, violence and murder.
Unfortunately, despite the subject matter, a lot of this book felt fairly bland to me. Perhaps I'm just not easily shocked, but I felt a lot of the content was included just for the "shock factor" and the main character just didn't feel authentic to me.
What begins as a look at the queer scene of the city soon diverges into an unexpected organ heist plot, and while parts of this were more entertaining and I found the end very impactful, as a whole the novel just didn't really work for me.
Still, I'm glad I read it and I enjoyed the journey - I just wish I'd really loved it as I went in with high hopes.
Unfortunately, despite the subject matter, a lot of this book felt fairly bland to me. Perhaps I'm just not easily shocked, but I felt a lot of the content was included just for the "shock factor" and the main character just didn't feel authentic to me.
What begins as a look at the queer scene of the city soon diverges into an unexpected organ heist plot, and while parts of this were more entertaining and I found the end very impactful, as a whole the novel just didn't really work for me.
Still, I'm glad I read it and I enjoyed the journey - I just wish I'd really loved it as I went in with high hopes.
April 23, 2023
An exciting experience that I was very happy to have had. I was expecting the crazy, wild experiences of a Rent Boy which I got. It was really funny and over the top. But then about halfway through the novel takes a turn and becomes an insane crime novel. And it worked so well!! Highly recommend and look forward to reading more Gary Indiana.
March 16, 2023
Another banger from Mr Indiana. He writes these books with so much skill and attention to detail (whether an astute observation or clever word choice) that is wonderfully juxtaposed with his transgressive leanings into the underbelly. 4/5
May 20, 2023
Yea that’s perfection
January 20, 2024
Likes it once the plot decided to make an appearance. 3.5.
February 5, 2024
Depraved <3
March 31, 2023
Four words to describe this book
Edgy: What can I say. It’s sexually edgy in a noir and ambiguous manner. It’s rough around the edges with an emotional sensibility deep within. The characters, the setting, and the workplaces are all morally cynical.
Dark humor: Dark or ire. However you want to describe the humor, there is one thing absolutely true: you will laugh. And when you are done laughing you will notice the graphic word play, the shame, the romanticism of narcotics and sexual taboos, and the grit within the words.
Ruthless: There’s a verbal spitfire that is inescapable. Not that you’re trying to run away anyways. You probably should, but you don’t because it’s electrifying and now you’re addicted to the candor.
Sensational: With its play on sophistication. The linguistic visual Indiana creates is transformative. I am sitting here and then I am all of a sudden back in time, in the throes of the forbidden and dangerous. I feel uncomfortable and I like it.
Edgy: What can I say. It’s sexually edgy in a noir and ambiguous manner. It’s rough around the edges with an emotional sensibility deep within. The characters, the setting, and the workplaces are all morally cynical.
Dark humor: Dark or ire. However you want to describe the humor, there is one thing absolutely true: you will laugh. And when you are done laughing you will notice the graphic word play, the shame, the romanticism of narcotics and sexual taboos, and the grit within the words.
Ruthless: There’s a verbal spitfire that is inescapable. Not that you’re trying to run away anyways. You probably should, but you don’t because it’s electrifying and now you’re addicted to the candor.
Sensational: With its play on sophistication. The linguistic visual Indiana creates is transformative. I am sitting here and then I am all of a sudden back in time, in the throes of the forbidden and dangerous. I feel uncomfortable and I like it.
January 2, 2024
hmm idk maybe 2.5. does that thing where crime happens in the third act. i think maybe reading a bunch of books where nothing in particular happens has ruined my ability to enjoy books with solid plots lol
January 21, 2024
A wild read unlike anything I’ve read before. Not sure I’d recommend it to anyone lol. Regardless an interesting story about sex work, drugs, and gay life in the AIDS era.
May 17, 2023
Rent Boy is Gary Indiana's novel about gay hustlers in New York City who get involved in a crooked doctor's plan to murder people and sell their body parts to hospitals for transplants. Blinded by love for his fellow rent boy, Chip (as gorgeous as he is reckless) Danny is about to learn that there's more than one way to turn your body into cash, and that cynicism is no defense when the real scalpels come out. Novels told from the perspective of gay sex workers and queer men hanging off the edge of society always intrigue me. I love books following protagonists who navigate transgressive worlds and feature uncommon perspectives. This is a darkly funny book with a high degree of linguistic sophistication. Danny is supposed to be telling the story in letters to an ex-lover, but that relationship never comes into focus. His quieter tones of voice keep getting drowned out by derisive glee. He piles on details of dress and decor and slang simply because it’s too much fun to stop, like gossiping with a friend who gets sidetracked with a million different side stories and never gets to the point. I went into this book blind and did not expect the gruesome storyline involving human organ harvesting. A lot of the characters are painted in a peculiar light, made more colourful by the protagonist’s flamboyant recollection. The protagonist has the goofiest and weirdest descriptions for all the sexual acts in the story. I might not be a male prostitute, but I know that most women don’t say things like “fuck my clam” when you’re having sex with them. I’m sure this is an intentional weird quirk that the character of Mavis is meant to have to show that she’s strange, or just Danny’s colourful/dramatized recollections, but it rattled me. I liked the depiction of how crime and working together with other criminals had an electric feeling that changed something in the air, like indulging in moral wrongdoing and breaking the rules with a group of criminals freed something primal and true between these characters. I loved how this book references Dennis Cooper’s novels, it gave this sense of connection between this book and other transgressive queer fiction. I liked seeing how Danny was even an outsider in the queer community because of his status as a rent boy, he never truly felt part of that world even though he was equally isolated from “normal” society as a queer man. I loved how Danny explained how being a rent boy gave him access to people’s darkest secrets and their truest selves, how the moments of intimacy after sex sometimes revealed so much. The ending was abrupt but I love how it turned the perception and tone of the whole story on its head. I liked this book a lot, but I’d only recommend it for fans of transgressive gay fiction and dark stories with LGBT+ characters.
September 23, 2022
Man oh man I loved this. Burned fast and hot with an explosive ending.
June 10, 2023
J’adore! Filthy downtown New York art-smut with a lot of heart and unfiltered narration
October 19, 2023
Like Bret Easton Ellis and Denis Cooper had a baby, but better. Also, how good of a name is “Gary Indiana”? Genius.
January 16, 2024
Good olde Gary
January 21, 2024
Power-read this treat of a book in one day and it was delicious.
August 8, 2023
Ok this book took me a bit long to read considering it’s 112 pages but what can I say I’m in my TikTok era. Anyways, fabulous storyline — I could see it making a great movie. The narrator was three dimensional, and the side characters were interesting. My only complaint is that there was too many characters for such a short amount of pages, it threw me off the plot a little bit. The whole book is slightly absurd, but it still felt believable. Big slay.
December 11, 2023
this kind of stuff is usually right up my alley except this writing style was just a huge miss for me, and even the plot was just so nonsensical and while i’m sure it could’ve been quite intriguing, it simply wasn’t. 2 stars instead of one because i will always have a teeny soft spot for anything gay written in the 80s and 90s.
also i know this is from the 90s and everything is ✨period typical✨, but i feel like even for back that that was a lot of -ism and -phobia.
also i know this is from the 90s and everything is ✨period typical✨, but i feel like even for back that that was a lot of -ism and -phobia.
February 27, 2023
I kept having difficulty focusing on the story because I couldn’t really connect to the main character for most of the book. The final section of the book made up for that and caught my attention. I just wish it could have been that way the entire story. This book vaguely reminded me of Dennis Cooper books, so I ofc laughed when the author name dropped him in Rent Boy. Though the book was short, it felt 3x larger and not to its benefit. I enjoyed most of it, but not all of it. This is the first book I’ve read by Gary Indiana, so maybe I’ll enjoy his other work more. We’ll see.
January 22, 2023
absolutely foul, loved it
February 18, 2023
So sickeningly twisted… that I had to give it 5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews