Aaron Foley

Aaron Foley’s debut novel tells the story of three black gay men in their thirties. Set in Detroit, a city Foley knows well, the book is both about the three men and about their city, as it changes around them.

For much of a year (the book is broken into sections named after three of the four seasons) we follow Dominick, Troy and Remy. Dominick has left his long-term boyfriend in New York after their relationship has grown stale and his successful marketing career takes a sideways turn. Returning to his hometown of Detroit after years away - first for college and then in pursuit of his career - he reunites with his best friend Troy, a schoolteacher. Troy introduces him to Remy, a successful real estate agent who Troy befriended in college. The three quickly become friend-family, and their relationship forms the backbone of the book.

Detroit is a character in the book, and all three men relate to it in different ways. Remy has positioned himself to take advantage of the influx of new, white, Detroiters and is hustling to make the most of his real estate career, marketing himself for his knowledge of the city and its neighborhoods as “Mr. Detroit”. He has landed a weekly radio show and is about to make a big deal as agent of record for a new development.

Troy’s current boyfriend is militant about resisting the changes happening to the city, and the gentrification of black neighborhoods. Troy agrees for the most part and finds himself suddenly facing the loss of his job as his privately funded magnet school may sell out to the same development Remy is tying his career to.

For his part, Dominick is glad to be back in Detroit and has his sights on establishing himself as a marketing force in the city.

But most of the book is devoted to the sex lives of the three - the hookups, the relationships and the “situationships”. Foley has said that he wrote the book specifically for black queer men and that he’s taken all the stories he’s heard from other black gay men and “thrown them in a blender” to create the love lives of Dom, Troy and Remy.

And it’s all there - the dating apps, the remembrance of life before dating apps, the place that race plays in gay relationships, the prevalence of hookup culture at the expense of long-term relationships, the men who can’t commit, the men who batter. And the sex. It's a funny and raunchy (okay sometimes really raunchy) blend.

Along the way careers develop, family relationships evolve, and the three men overcome differences to form an ever-tighter connection.

I preordered this book before it was published at the end of May and was pretty excited at the prospect of a story of gay friendship with a Michigan setting (my home state). Even though I’ve never been a Detroiter and am not black, I really loved the book. Of the three men, I found Troy to be the most “real”, and I felt like he’s the one who goes through the biggest arc of change in the book. He’s a bit of a lost soul throughout most of the book. And when he finally starts to find himself it's gratifying that he brings his friends along with him. After all, boys come first.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐… (meer)

The Publisher Says: Suddenly jobless and single after a devastating layoff and a breakup with his cheating ex, advertising copywriter Dominick Gibson flees his life in Hell's Kitchen to try and get back on track in his hometown of Detroit. He’s got one objective — exit the shallow dating pool ASAP and get married by thirty-five—and the deadline’s approaching fast.

Meanwhile, Dom's best friend, Troy Clements, an idealistic teacher who never left Michigan, finds himself at odds with all the men in his life: a troubled boyfriend he's desperate to hold onto, a perpetually dissatisfied father, and his other friend, Remy Patton. Remy, a rags-to-riches real estate agent known as “Mr. Detroit,” has his own problems—namely choosing between making it work with a long-distance lover or settling for a local Mr. Right Now who’s not quite Mr. Right. And when a high-stakes real estate deal threatens to blow up his friendship with Troy, the three men have to figure out how to navigate the pitfalls of friendship and a city that seems to be changing overnight.

Full of unforgettable characters, Boys Come First is about the trials and tribulations of real friendship, but also about the highlights and hiccups—late nights at the wine bar, awkward Grindr hookups, workplace microaggressions, situationships, frenemies, family drama, and of course, the group chat—that define Black, gay, millennial life in today’s Detroit.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There's no such thing as "reverse racism." There's just racism, with shifting targets. Dom, Troy, and Remy all say, and feel, really racist things. And guess what: Unlike white people, these Black men have reasons to feel angry and frustrated and dispossessed. Their skin color marks them out as targets for lunatic racist white scum.

And guess what else? Black folks ain't perfect. These are three gay men, in a social milieu that really, really does NOT want their men to be gay. At all. So can you see what leads these loving, flawed, hurting, sadder-looking-for-wiser guys to be mouthy? It's like women of all colors rolling their eyes so hard they see their brains when men of any color start legislating what they can and can't do with their own bodies. There's a lot of anger built up at a lot of groups. Most with reason and justice on their side.

A lot of that anger is faced up to in this story of hurt, betrayal, and abuse. Dom and Troy, in their different ways, are reeling from domestic drama that is instantly relatable. Remy, not part of the kidhood bond shared by Dom and Troy, is probably the most personally insulated from domestic drama since he's in a "situationship," a neologism (it was to me, at least) I really like for a long-distance, still love-based, relationship. Not like I understand that from the inside or anything....

Remy's job as a real-estate hustler leads to a major fracture in his friendship with Troy and, to an extent, Dom, because his work is threatening to repurpose Troy's employer, a school, into gentrification's profitable arms. Detroit's decades of economic woes are a huge part of this story's rage-fuel. Would Dom have left Detroit for New York (and by extension met his cheating ex) had Detroit been capable of sustaining his ambitious need for a media market commensurate? Troy's domestic woes are fed, at least in part, by the economic struggles inherent in pursuing a teaching career. And here's Remy about to make a bundle of cash off the city's redevelopment....

I think the major take-away from this story is that there's no room for racism's corrosive effects in any society we need to support the creation of; and the other hate-isms, like homophobia and colorism, have to go in the dumpster too. When these Black, gay men face so much trouble from outside, it makes their work to fix the problems inside so very much harder. And that stops them not at all, doesn't even slow them down much, as they fight and fuck and work themselves up to fever pitch. These men, messy lives and sad hearts and powerful spirits in them all, make every day count. They don't, by the end of the story, waste what they've got anymre in wanting what they can't have.

But that does not mean they take second best. Not for long, anyway. It makes them great companions for a summer laze on the beach.

Just...maybe skip ahead over the smexytimes. Until you get home, anyway.… (meer)

A fascinating, hilarious look at the trials and triumphs of three Black, gay friends in their thirties, and their native Detroit. The three main characters are followed in alternating chapters, not only switching which is the point-of-view character but changing perspective between third-person and first-person narration—an interesting move that highlighted differences between the characters' personalities.

Variously and together, these men struggle with the indignities of the gay dating and hookup scene, attempting to find respectful love, familial relationships, professional success and failure, gentrification and racism, and their friendship itself. Detroit as a very specific, vibrant, living city with both history and potential is a huge part of the story.… (meer)