Pulling Taffy

I'm just blown away by how exciting this book is -- I couldn't put it down! The narrator's story is such a thrill -- I don't think I've seen a queer narrative like this before. From painting his nails in the Boston subway to wondering whether he could get AIDS from tasting his own come to ranting at conformity to dressing up in crazy outfits and dancing, this is the story for every queer person who doesn't quite fit in -- and doesn't want to. It's also incredibly sexy.

... PULLING TAFFY is the best novel by a living author I have read in at least five years. More probably 10 or 15. Why? As I'm not being paid to write this I can only offer these keywords: "A 21st century glam-boy's achingly beautifully understated elegy to dead teenage friends and--" And grandmothers still living who strike the reader -- hard -- as offering not just unconditional love, but some knowledge that, if only we could fully decode it, would hold the key to a lot of questions.

Pulling Taffy is a wonderfully innovative and well-written novel. Sycamore engages the reader by writing with intense passion and humor. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.

I read about this book in the Hot issue of OUT Magazine where Sycamore was the Hottest New Novelist, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. This is the most exciting book I've read in a while-- I really couldn't put it down! Sycamore's voice is raw, smart, and flamboyant. This tale of searching for meaning and sustenance in a world that wants to squash all difference and beauty is emotional in such a direct, unflinching, honest way. He really knows how to pare language down to it's essentials, while revealing so many unexpected twists, like grandmothers talking to their grandson about hustling, the startling beauty and danger in anonymous sex, and a sudden love for a girl in a diner singing "Lean on Me" or an old lady at the post office. The Provincetown section is absolutely hilarious-- Sycamore really knows how to present the gore of gay culture. What Edmund White says is right, "I have seen the future and it is Pulling Taffy."

There's a whole literature waiting to be written about the ways in which gay men truly relate to each other and to their culture. Some of our braver writers, like Dennis Cooper and David Wojnarowicz and Gary Indiana, have chipped away at this wealth of material, and now Matt Bernstein Sycamore adds his name to the list. As befits a novel composed of fragments, the best moments in this story are exactly that--moments, often unexpected, when men connect in very real, very familiar ways which somehow haven't been portrayed quite this accurately before. "Pulling Taffy" is an original accomplishment.