Just by Looking at Him - A Novel

From the star of Peacock's Queer as Folk and the Netflix series Special comes a "funny, tender, and beautiful" (Gary Janetti, New York Times bestselling author) novel following a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy as he fights addiction and searches for acceptance in an overwhelmingly ableist world.

Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he's grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can't seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek.

After falling down a rabbit hole of sex, drinking, and Hollywood backstabbing, Elliott decides to limp his way towards redemption. But facing your demons is easier said than done.

"With his singular voice and unforgettable wit" (Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle), Ryan O'Connell presents a candid, biting, and refreshingly real commentary on gay lif e, laugh-out-loud exploration of self, and a rare insight into life as a person with disabilities.

Leseprobe:

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
My boyfriend Gus has a beautiful penis. It's big and thick without being too big or too thick. It has the right number of pulsating veins when hard (the correct number is two). It's not crooked or bent. It's not purple or pink. It's sun-dappled olive.

The rest of him is great too. High cheekbones, bee-stung lips, wavy brown hair, gentle eyes. Dressed neatly in cardigans and loafers like a true hot gay nerd. But if I'm being honest, his dick is the star. I loved it from the moment I saw it. Not like I was surprised. My best friend Augie dated Gus before me. "Elliott, if God is real, he's a fag," he told me. "A straight God would never make a penis this detailed and expressive. It's like the 'Beach House' episode of Girls. A work of art." I made a mental note. At the time I was dating someone else, someone whose penis I can no longer remember. His name was Hudson, which can you imagine? Yikes.

Anyway, we dated for three months and Augie dat ed Gus for four, which was generous of him really. He was doing the prep work, getting him ready for me. And when I broke up with Hudson, there Gus was. My brain, which previously had been an unsafe neighborhood to walk around in at night, had carved out a nice space for him when I wasn't looking. It allowed me to have a nice patch of grass and sunshine, a Whole Foods even. And for five years, we were together, and everything was perfect. I don't even know how to write about this without slipping into platitudes, so I won't. I will say, however, that even with the best love, you could still wake up one day next to a beautiful man with a beautiful penis and be bored. You could start wishing for a smaller penis, an uglier one, with tons of veins and the color of sickness.

Everything gets boring after a while. The sun eventually goes down, the Whole Foods closes, and suddenly you're in a scary alleyway.

For the record: my penis is average.

Rezension:

"With his singular voice and unforgettable wit, O'Connell movingly explores how our messiest moments can lead to radical self-acceptance. Elliott's journey may be his own, but what he discovers about the absurdity of the human condition is universal." -Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle and Lily and The Octopus