Ponyboy — Eliot Duncan

Longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction


An evocative debut novel of trans-masculinity, addiction, and the pain and joy of becoming.

Ponyboy unravels in his Paris apartment. Cut to the bar. Cut to the back room. Ponyboy is strung out and struggling. He is falling into the widening chasm between who he is -- trans, electrically so -- and the blank canvas his girlfriend, Baby, wants him to be.

Cut to Berlin. Ponyboy sinks deeper into drugs and falls for Gabriel, all the while pursued by a photographer hungry for the next hot thing. As his relationships crumble, he overdoses.

Cut to open sky. In a rehab back home in Iowa, Ponyboy is his mother's son. In precise, atmospheric prose, Eliot Duncan's debut novel lays bare the innate splendor, joy, and ache of becoming one's self.