Boys come first

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Foley's sparkling debut novel (after the guidebook How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass) follows a trio of Black gay male friends in Detroit as they grapple with love, work, and gentrification. Dominick Gibson returns home to Motor City after two setbacks in the Big Apple--losing his job and finding his boyfriend cheating on him. He reconnects with his best friend Troy Clements, a teacher, and meets Troy's bestie, Remy Patton, a real estate agent. As Dominick reacquaints himself with his native city, the guys observe the differences between "Old and New Detroit," talk about code-switching, and wonder if they can have healthy, stable relationships. Troy's boyfriend, Roderick, is abusive, and Remy is imagining a future with Roland, his long-distance "situationship." In contrast, Dominick has a series of awkward, unsatisfying hookups. Meanwhile, a real estate deal Remy is involved with that would result in Troy's school being torn down causes a rift between the friends. But it's Remy's soul-searching that takes center stage, as he weighs his desire for a meaningful relationship with a need for self-fulfillment, all the while carrying the burdens of his sexual and racial identity. Foley's love for his city and his engaging characters shines through, and his novel is funny, naughty, and comforting. This auspicious debut will leave readers eager for more. (May)

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Review by Library Journal Review

DEBUT Nonfiction author Foley (How To Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass) spares no detail in this fiction debut set in the Motor City, including depictions of sexual relationships. Dominick has moved back to Detroit from New York after going through a breakup and losing his job. Troy is a teacher whose school may be closing. Remy, or Mr. Detroit, is a realtor in charge of converting the school property into a series of studio apartments. The three men are friends who are navigating being Black and gay in Detroit and coping with the way in which changes in the city affect their friendship (for instance, Remy is concealing the truth about the school from Troy). Foley creates a rich setting and strong characters. Each chapter shifts perspectives among the three men; Dominick's and Troy's chapters are written in third person, while Remy's is written in the first to show his strong sense of self. VERDICT Readers who enjoy character-driven romance, especially LGBTQ+ fiction, will appreciate this book. Some may be put off by the explicit sexual content, but the plot and the strong characters should keep them turning pages.--Natalie Browning

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An often funny debut novel about three friends searching for love and themselves in a rapidly gentrifying Detroit. Dominick, Troy, and Remy, three Black gay men in Detroit, are at a key turning point in their lives. After having caught his boyfriend in bed with another man and gotten fired from his job on the same day, Dominick Gibson packed up his car, left Manhattan, and, as the book opens, is driving back to his mom's house in Detroit. Dominick is unsure what's next for him, but he feels the clock ticking: "Here he was now, thirty-three years old and with eight years with his ex, Justin, having led absolutely nowhere. Time was running out. Though when you're Black, gay, and thirtysomething, time always feels like it's running out." Dominick reconnects with Troy Clements, his best friend, who's a socially minded teacher at The Mahaffey School in a neighborhood primed for "redevelopment"--or, in other words, bulldozers. Like so many Detroit residents, Troy is unsure about his city's future. As he tells Dominick, "My worry is that it won't be a Black city anymore. That it's not going to belong to us like it used to. White people have started moving here in droves. Every time you look up--Dan Gilbert! New restaurant! New this, new that! And my thing is, I'm looking at my kids at Mahaffey and their families, and I know they won't be able to keep up when it hits." The final member of the trio is Troy's friend Remy Patton, a real estate agent who goes by "Mr. Detroit." When Remy takes on a project that threatens Troy's school, all three men have to decide where their loyalties lies. Foley's novel paints a vivid picture of Detroit gentrification pushing African American residents out in favor of high-priced condos, bougie restaurants, and new, White residents. The novel also excels at showing the ups and downs of the dating scene in Detroit. Dominick, Troy, and Remy experience steamy hookups, genuine connections, awkward encounters with closeted White men from the suburbs, and even an attempted rape. Foley has created original, striking characters; unfortunately, alternating among all three points of view sacrifices some of the plot's momentum. Each man goes through dramatic ups and downs, but the larger story gets lost along the way. Sharp characters and a striking depiction of friendship within a story that never quite coheres. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One I better not get my Black ass pulled over in hoe-ass, bitch-ass Pennsylvania, Dominick Gibson thought to himself for what must have been the fortieth time, speeding westward through the Keystone State in a rented Kia Soul that could barely maintain the eighty-fiveish miles-per-hour he'd been doing since he'd first merged onto I-80 coming out of Manhattan. Although, getting pulled over in one of these dreary drive-by towns filled with Trump voters in whistle-stop diners and letting the officer, inevitably white and male, humiliate, beat, or haul Dominick off to jail--or maybe some combination of all of the above--would fit right in with the total shitstorm of events he'd had to endure over the last week and a half. Just eleven days ago, Dominick had been enjoying monogamy and gainful employment in New York City. Now, in the earliest hours of this Pennsylvania morning, neither existed. He'd had very specific goals before everything had fallen apart: marriage by thirty-five, a kid one year after that, a vacation home by forty, and his own advertising firm by forty-five. But here he was now, thirty-three years old and with eight years with his ex, Justin, having led absolutely nowhere. Time was running out. Though when you're Black, gay, and thirtysomething, time always feels like it's running out. The thirtysomething years are a critical age for gay men like Dominick because they have to have everything figured out by then if they don't want to become walking stereotypes later. While Dominick was busy getting older, everyone else around him just kept getting younger. Each time he took a lingering look in the mirror, it seemed like his hairline had receded another millimeter from the last time he'd checked. Meanwhile, a new crop of boys, all with healthy hair and more-elaborate-than-ever skincare routines, kept rolling off the assembly line faster than ever. Is everybody at the club just twenty-two now? he thought. They google how to douche; we had to learn the hard way. Those younger men were forbidden fruit, and they would chase after guys like Dominick once he got to a certain age--that age when, if he reached it while he was still single, he would turn into the full-blown stereotype. Leering. Predatory. Old. The last thing Dominick wanted was to be someone's daddy , a sixtysomething single man with a wrinkled chitterling dick and a hog maw butthole who thinks he's forty years younger and creeps on anybody and everybody. That's the thing. If Black gay men don't have their shit together in their thirties--the job, the two-bedroom apartment, and the boyfriend who's about to become a fiancée and then a husband--then they're still going to be figuring it all out in their forties and fifties when the crow's feet start showing. And Dominick certainly did not want to be in the dating pool at forty when everyone else was twenty-two. He didn't want to be struggling with his career at the same time either, so as he had worked hard to hold onto Justin, he had also made sure he kept climbing in the advertising world. Before it all fell apart, the two of them were planning to just settle down with each other and their peak incomes and leave all the broken and broke fortysomethings behind. Plans gone awry consumed Dominick's thoughts as he sped through the rest of Pennsylvania and Ohio. He barely had enough gas to make it to his mother's front door in Detroit. But despite his infrequent visits of late, he still remembered one important thing about his hometown: do not stop for gas in the middle of the night. The low-fuel light gleamed in the dashboard as he pulled into his mother's driveway, and he muttered a little prayer of thanks that he'd made it there without any issues. Though after almost ten hours in the car, intermittently talking to God, his best friend Troy, Siri, and an annoying woman from a collection agency, Dominick knew he would now have to talk to his mother, Tonya Gibson, who was standing in the doorway at 2:38 a.m., wondering why her son had decided to drive all the way to Detroit from his apartment in Hell's Kitchen on a Thursday. A half-hour later, after a quick, evasive chat with his mother and an excuse that he had a headache and just needed to sleep, Dominick laid on the full-size bed in his teenage room, his back already aching from the lumpy Art Van mattress his mother hadn't replaced in fifteen years. He was a gay man, a Black gay man, with a setback and without explanation. Excerpted from Boys Come First by Aaron Foley All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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