Overview

"From COWBOY JAMBOREE PRESS good grit lit. Praise for BENJAMIN DREVLOW and HONKY ""The late, great Lewis Nordan assured our geographies made us, and I have a feeling Benjamin Drevlow would agree. The risky endeavors connecting the stories of Honky chart geographies from Northernass Wisconsin and the longings of a white boy with heroes like Air Jordan, Tupac, and Biggie to Southernass Georgia with that grown up boy trying to do right in a world he struggles to comprehend. Hot damn, Drevlow is on to something genuine, with prose so pure I guarantee you'll fly through these pages so you can start all over again."" - Tom Williams, author of Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Stories ""Like all vital work, Honky raises questions: about the nature of white American masculinity, about the choices we make for or against our upbringings. Drevlow's work alternates between the crude, the touching, and the hilarious. If it were up to me, I'd name Drevlow the poet laureate of Northernass Wisconsin."" - Leland Cheuk, author of No Good Very Bad Asian ""In his new collection of linked short stories, Benjamin Drevlow creates a persona, a character: a bumbling white guy named Ben Drevlow who is over-eager to be accepted by the Black people in his life-on the basketball court, at work, in his neighborhood-but who also has an uncanny knack for faux pas that often gets in the way. The Ben Drevlow of Honky is a welcome counter to the aggrieved white guy trope we've had to suffer through for the last decade, actually for basically forever. He seeks acceptance, belonging, connection, and when he doesn't always get what he wants he doesn't turn to anger. He has the awareness to recognize not everything is about himself. He's always trying to be a good person, and always aware that he's not always as good a person as he wants to be, but he never stops trying, and that's the thing that makes him good, because the world is full of people who do stop trying. These stories are funny, absurd, heart-wrenching, sometimes cringe-worthy, but they're also real and filled with respect and introspection. Benjamin Drevlow writes his heart out."" - Alan Good, Malarkey Books and author of The Sun Still Shines on a Dog's Ass ""Benjamin Drevlow writes, 'White guilt can be a powerful motivating factor in proving you're not racist like your neighbors.' The moment encapsulates a lot of what Honky is about when it comes to well-meaning white people, performative anti-racist sentiments, and the complexities of navigating interpersonal relationships. More than an allegory or politicized rant, this collection is unapologetically blunt in using tools like basketball and hip-hop to give the reader much more food for thought than the narrator himself can digest. Honky is not for the faint of heart but it is a book that should go on the reading list of anyone interested in developing empathy, celebrating grit, and getting in a few good laughs along the way."" - Michael Chin, author of This Year's Ghost and My Grandfather's an Immigrant, and So Is Yours ""Honky is a tour de force. It is at once investigative and deeply personal. Often asking the hard questions directed/targeted at oneself, one's whiteness, at Drevlow's history and/or coming-of-age. In the same way Crew's A Childhood turned the pen inwards, so does Drevlow's Honky. Self-exploration is a difficult task and racial tension a hard subject, especially in a climate like today. Honky is visceral and gripping and above all nuanced-Drevlow should be applauded for striking that balance."" - Sacha Bissonnette, Wigleaf Top Fifty"

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