Rent Boy

“Literature with the filter off . . . Rent Boy is a multi-faceted little gem . . . the sort of funny, sick, weird little book you never forget.” —John Self, The Critic

An outrageous noir tour-de-force set in a world of hustlers by “a shark in US literature’s calm waters” (The Guardian).

It’s New York City, 1991, 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 wants to be at the Emerson—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.