Candyass

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By (author): Nick Comilla

Arthur is a young gay man in Montreal at a crossroads. He gets lost in a blizzard of boys and endless possibilities–looking to fall in love and to experience devotion–but finds himself increasingly immersed in a world of hedonism and deception, especially as he deals with the messy remains of his relationship with Jeremy, his chimerical ex-boyfriend and first love. He moves to New York in search of something more, but due to a lack of foresight and chaotic romantic entanglements, he finds he still yearns for authentic connections with others. In a world that celebrates youth and extended adolescence, what does it mean to grow up?

Candyass is a coming-of-age novel with hard edges and a soft heart: a striking debut work about what it means to be young, queer, and urban today; a radical chronicle of queer love and desire among millennials, whose feelings and impulses flicker and fade along with the bright lights of the city at night.

AUTHOR

Nick Comilla

Nick Comilla was born on a military base turned ghost town in Rome, NY, and grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at Concordia University in Montreal, and completed his MFA in poetry and fiction at The New School in New York. His work has appeared in Lambda Literary, Poetry Is Dead, Assaracus, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and Montreal.

Reviews

Nick Comilla’s Candyass is a queer Casanova travelogue for the modern age that’s both bold and bittersweet.
-Slava Mogutin, author of Lost Boys and Food Chain
To read Nick Comilla’s Candyass is to witness the end of something the second you attain it, to enter a perpetual state of loss where everything happens in the name of poetry. In this transgressive text, conjuring the muse means tracing the impressions others leave on your skin, aware that the smell of a lover will last longer than the memory of their face. By turns wise, infuriating, and sad, Candyass will keep you thrumming with discovery and lust and feeling. -Daniel Allen Cox, author of Shuck and Mouthquake
Candyass gets right to the beating heart of a young queer kid navigating his way through the minefield of modern love. In Nick Comilla’s debut novel, the soul of the poet is unmistakable. -Bruce LaBruce
So young, so contemporary, so thoughtful and skillful in dissecting the exquisite corpse of gay life today. -Edmund White