Flushboy

by Stephen Graham Jones

"My hat is off to Stephen Graham Jones, because he is the kind of author that makes the frustrated writer inside every book reviewer cringe with self-doubt."—PopMatters So there's video footage of me not washing my hands in the bathroom at work. My dad says it's the kind of the thing that can tank his whole business. That he has to be extra careful. Don't I understand? Usually when he's spewing all this, I just stand there. Last week I was his show-and-tell for Sunday school class. We wore matching ties, and I was under strict orders not to smile or look sly. Some of those people were his customers, after all. I don't know. Anyway, bam, yeah, the camera caught I ran the water but didn't wash my hands. Over the course of one shift working the window of his father's drive-through urinal, our sixteen-year-old Flushboy will have to not only juggle gallons of warm pee and deal with the worst flood ever (it's not water), but he'll also have to fend off the urine mafia, solve the citywide mystery of Chickenstein, and win his girlfriend back. Stephen Graham Jones is the author of ten novels, three collections, and one novella. He is a full professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and in the low-residency program for University of California Riverside—Palm Desert. Stephen is forty-one, and married with children.

Genres: Horror, Indigenous, Fiction, Satire

184 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2013

About the author

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.

Reviews

[SiJay · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say other than read Flushboy

[King Crusoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Update:

So I have finished now, on agreement with somebody else - Allie, I ain’t seen no updates from you, come on now - and I can say…there were only 2 scenes/moments that I thought were a net positive.

There was one scene with the health inspector in the back half that I thought was mildly amusing - but only barely so - and the general stuff in the last handful of chapters between the main character and his father and Prudence was okay, but again only barely sparking anything meaningful.

The long and short of this for me is that it is of fairly consistent quality (the only thing it has on Mapping the Interior for example), but that quality is pointless and boring. Characters didn’t matter, setting made no spacial sense, interactions were okay some of the time I guess, the main characters monologuing I guess kinda worked for the character even if I didn’t like it, and nothing that was supposed to make me care or feel anything - whether it be gross, bad, good, amused, whatever - basically did none of that.

This gets one star not because I hated it, but because there was nothing of note that I liked. Taking MtI as I mentioned in the last paragraph - that one had lower lows than this, but it also had higher highs; I’ll recall the first 20% of that book fondly, and it started great (plus I could see myself re-reading it to see if I get more out of it now that I know the contents of the page.

This book had nothing to really appreciate for me. The coming of age/maturity part was the best part, and it barely did anything for me at all, and it doesn’t light a candle next to the light of Goddodin to what other stuff I’ve read, even tho I haven’t read much coming of age stuff yet.

Flat, boring book that made no damn sense and evoked no emotion from me 97% of the time, and I would’ve been happier with it only half finished and “2 stars because whatever” as an official rating as such. Again, it’s not 1 star because I hated it, but because I didn’t like any of it, where everything else I’ve read has had SOMEthing notable that I liked, even if I overall disliked the package (the bird book and MtI are examples.)




DNF Review:

I'm not one to DNF, but this book - alongside my continued lack of desire to ever return to The Tides of War - might be slowly changing my mind about the idea.

This doesn't mean I hate Flushboy, or even that I simply disliked it. The issue I took with Flushboy is that even halfway through, I was so disinterested and unenthused by what was going on that it just wasn't working for me.

The humor didn't work for me (unlike Night of the Mannequins), the characters and setting didn't work for me (unlike Night of the Mannequins), and I was so disconnected from the story (and everything else as mentioned) that most of the toilet related disgustingness wasn't even gross. That's when, after half of the book, I also discovered this morning that I just didn't have any desire to pick the book back up, which is potentially the most damning response a person can have.

Like I said...I wasn't hating the book - I'm sure if it continued the way it was, I would have rated a 2 stars rather than a 1 star - and I feel bad to DNF despite it being a gift from a friend, but Flushboy just isn't for me.

And that's okay, as many of my other friends really like it. :-)

[Carm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teenage angst, dark humor and gallons… just fucking gallons of piss. What a weird and wonderful little gem this turned out to be.

[Amanda F · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most unusual book I’ve read. I mean, I guess I could call it unique and not unusual. Basically, it’s a book about a teenager working at his dad’s business and counting down the time til he graduates and can get away from his life. The unique (weird?) thing about this one is that his dad’s business is a drive-thru urinal. Y’all! I could NOT read this book without thinking about the smell. No matter what was happening on this normal to not-so-normal night of work for this kid, I could only focus on the smell. I was so grossed out by just the thought of it. I loved how that made the story even more real because he’s dealing with his girlfriend and wanting to leave work early for the game, and parental issues, and STILL he works in a urinal and I cannot get over it! 😁 also, this book was wonderful and you should read it.

[Chris Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, with this Stephen Graham Jones, it's hard to know what exactly you're going to get with each book he puts out. Genre has no grave to keep him down. Just give him a notion, the way the light moves through a window, and he's got a novel, and oh will it be novel. Flushboy, it's simple, taking place in one night, in one place, and so much happens that all you could never guess, even though he plants the seeds, waters it just right. Really, the book holds you with a warm glove. But, seriously, the pure beauty of the piss jokes will make your year.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's been standing there like a zombie all day.
-Mad Max

Here they come,
those feelings again.
- Men At Work

There are things so far beyond belief that it ought to be possible to wake from them.
- DM Thomas

This innovative economic system reduces major points of cross-contamination and ensures that your Flushboy wall-mounted lavatories are always clean and presentable.
- Autohygiene Owner's Manual

Flushboy is embarrassed to be working at the family business, a drive-thru urinal. With a shortage of public restrooms in the area, business is booming! They got an old carwash track and offer a variety of add-ons to enhance the customer's urination experience.

Stephen Graham Jones is quickly rising on my list of favorite authors. I've enjoyed everything I've read so far by Stephen Graham Jones and since he's so prolific, I'll be entertained for a while.

This particular short novel made me quite queasy if I read too much in one sitting.

Favorite Passages:

Just two more years, though. I say this to myself a lot. Two years and then I'm gone, out of the wash high school already is, off to another state where I can enroll in some land-grant school and not tell anybody that I'm paying higher tuition. Not tell anybody what I did for an hourly wage my junior and senior years. I can be far enough away to forget the warm, anonymous Gatorade bottles I keep finding in the top shelf of my locker at school.

Part One: The Urinal Cake Blues
The novelty's a big part of our draw, I know.
It doesn't make it any easier.
________

I imagined him sitting in wingback chair we'd never had. An evil chair.
________

The voice he came at me with was the voice of the devil.
________

"You know what an ultimatum is, right?" he led off.
"One of those organic tomatoes," I said. "Sure."
The flash of liquid white across the room was my father's smile.
________

I went upstairs, dug through all my old boxes until I found my snorkeling kit, and didn't even notice for three weeks that the help wanted ad wasn't running anymore.
________

I'm more religious now than I used to be. What comes around's been around before, all that.
________

The thing was, all the water in our pump-up guns, it had been drawn from the toilet.
________

He really feels like he's providing the world a service here.
________

I pull the money in, push his keys back out, and we're done.
All of us, I mean. People in general.
________

We know where we are, we know what we do. On Saturday, the one day we each have off per week, should we ever be under the same food court or lobby or department store security camera, and somebody's watching us on that closed-circuit feed, we'll stand out, I know: the slumped shoulders, the slack face, the vacant, war-torn stare, like we've seen too much already. If ghosts could walk and mumble and wear clothes, that's what we'd be, I think. The only place we wouldn't stand out is the nursing home.
________

Chickenstein.
He was here.
Or she.
_______

. . . pictures so closeup they look like scratch 'n sniffs.
_______

For all I know, that fish is still in there, invisible in the hearty yellow water. Swimming through a dream it can't wake from.
Prudence, because she's like this, has named the goldfish Dick.
_______

Prudence's idea is that the only food people would buy at a place like ours would be novelty food.
And, in keeping with the theme, all the dishes would be made up to look like turds of one kind or another ("Poo Burger," "S.O.S.," "Cowpie," "Rabbit Pellets," "Litterbox Cake," "Duty-Free French Fries," etc.) and the ice cubes would be yellow, and the pitchers would be Johns and Janes, and the waters when they delivered the food would do it with their hands in bags turned inside out, and not look happy about it.
_______

As the city informed us, though, we were neither licensed for that volume of sewage nor was our plumbing rated for it.
So now disposal is off-site, and my father's sold his soul to some urine lord or piss merchant. One with goldfish swimming in his bladder, maybe.
_______

Not redistributing the urine is the first thing you learn at Drive-Through U. Not only would it contribute to the possible spread of disease, for which we could be held liable, but the service we offer is supposed to offer complete and total anonymity as well.
It's like you get brainwashed after a while.
_______

My father's term for the wall of police urine washing towards us at each shift change is "the bum rush."
_______

You can tell a lot about a person from their pee.
Some smell like sugar, some like blood.
_______

. . . his wet dream is some citywide sewage catastrophe . . .
_______

. . . the telepathy he's trying to direct across the table at her so think you can practically see it.
We're on the ground floor of something big here.
This is the future.
That yellow glow in the pot at the end of the rainbow, it isn't gold.
_______

Diuretics?
They're what make people pee more.
But how to get them into every condiment tray and salt shaker in town? Or, better yet, how to condition the consumer so that, when he sees our distinctive sign, he has a sudden and wholly undeniable urge to relieve himself?


Part Two: The Great American Splashdown
Mellow Yellow.
The Golden State.
Drive-Thru John's.
Number One.
The Pit Stop.
The Whizz.
My dad had no idea what to call this place - Urine Your Car? Nature's Call? Tee-Tee a G0-Go? For a while there was even a fire hydrant involved. At the last moment, we were almost The P Spot even. It was a compromise between The Bladder Hut and his P-Trap idea.
_______

There's a difference between toasting yourself and getting toasted, though.
His beer is like flat lemonade in a metal can that some kid's balanced up on the fence then forgotten all week. Even the cats won't drink it.
I'd think better of him if he'd just go back to the real thing probably. Without alcohol to cloud his mind, the wheels in there turn too fast, grind us all up.
_______

I'm staring at the yellow wall now. At the pale yellow phone cord swirling towards it. Like I'm floating in space, peeing into a black hole.
_______

If it's possible to cry out your urethra, then that's what I did that day.
_______

Relieving yourself is the universal language - "We're all metaphorically floating on generation upon generation of urine. We were born with these sea legs. These tides are part of us, and we're part of them" (Paternus Rectumis 24:7)
_______

My suspicion is that if you have to have a hermaphrodite policy, then you might just be in the wrong business.
Not to say anything bad about all the Genes and Jeans out there.
_______

Would hunters really be interested in purchasing gender-specific spray bottles of urine?
Should we offer a Free-Pee coupon to anyone able to fill three Johns or Janes in their allotted fifty-two seconds?
_______

Darkness brings the jokers out.
Like my dad says, their money's as good as anybody's.
What I am is the lame zebra, watching the lionesses pace back and forth, casing the herd.
_______

And anyway, peeing shouldn't be a game of Twister. Especially on a first date.
_______

. . . but the truth of the matter is that peeing into a rubber makes you throw up a little, into the back of your throat.


Part Three: Leaktakers & Heartbreakers
I'm just trying to come to terms with the warm urine beading on my upper lip, I suppose.
_______

I can wash the pee out of my hair, but not out of everybody else's head.
_______

And what of the real victims, those unfortunate people mired in line, the next restroom a whole mile down the road? Should Bladder Hut institute some policy that, if you're in line for more than five minutes, we supply you with complimentary seat pads and air fresheners?
I live at the circus, yeah. Come see me at the freak tent, my booth's easy to find.
_______

"One guy of indiscriminate age - "
"Twenty-five."
"- in a Jeep or a Bronco or a Land Cruiser or a Scout or a -"
"Chinese, too," I add, staring him down about this.
"That would explain the firecrackers," the officer says, not really playing along.
_______

My dad says that if you milk cows for a living, sometimes you get shot with the milk.
He's never even seen a cow, I don't think.
_______

Once upon a better time.
_______

That taste is still in the back of my throat, the back of my mind.
_______

I haven't followed it all the way out to wherever it ends yet, but it sounds funny anyway, gets me and my mom across whatever awkwardness he's left us in, and we laugh instead of cry, and that's good enough for now. This is how people live from moment to moment, I think. It's about getting by.
Except, lately, I haven't been getting by so well. My mouthwash sessions have been lasting longer and longer, and deep enough that I gag sometimes, and once I even threw up what I know was bile, but, still, it was yellow, and thin.
What I'm afraid of, I think, it's bigger than just me and him. It's about fathers and sons. How us sons are all in tanks, like, in bubbles of our father's hopes and dreams and mistakes and regrets, and how there's something in us that knows better than to stretch out too far, because there won't be any room left to move around then, and we'll burst the bubble, drown.
________

The porta-potty in the turn lane explodes ten minutes after I get behind the second window again.
_______

Touched by an Alien.


Part Four: The Gospel of P
My dad's one try at infecting the whole property instead of just the building was to start calling the drive-through tracks the "urinary tract."
He was the only one who ever said it. It wasn't that the name didn't fit, it was that it fit too well.
_______

"And you'd be willing to testify against yourself?"
_______

You don't just stumble onto the urinal cake formula while making waffles one Sunday morning.
_______

"Have you seen him do it?"
I don't have an answer. I'm not even that sure what the question is. That my dad's in bed with some Porta-John Godfather?
_______

The lump in my throat is a water balloon, filling.
The reason people steal our curtains sometimes is because they can make the front seat of a car into a bedroom, if you stick them up by the window, say, instead of between the two seats. And the one Mark has, it even matches his seats.
_______

I know what this is now.
My school bus fears have been childish.
_______

The water balloon in my throat has burst, is drowning me.
The cowboy narrows his eyes at me, bites his lip again.
_______

"It's worse than stupid. It's an insult to public decency. An affront to hygiene. The end of the human species as we know it."

[Jamie Grefe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I give so many five star reviews here on Goodreads, definitely my fault for choosing books I know I'm going to really like, and then being blown away by how great they are. I'll add FLUSHBOY to the list. I've read a handful of SGJ's books and plenty of short stories, but FLUSHBOY sticks out to me as something existing in its own tragicomedy-teen angst world: well-voiced, brilliantly plotted, funny, heartbreaking, smart, and tender, tender enough for me to take it down in two joyful sittings (with several bathroom breaks in between, of course--gotta fill the John). And, I've done customer service, I understand the main character, where he's coming from, but where he's coming from is also so beautifully sad and alive that it makes me want to paint those old bathroom-mopping memories in some kind of fresh yellow paint. And Prudence. I've met her, too, but I'll not go into that. I can't remember feeling so good for the way things end up in the book. Great work, SGJ, and thank you for, again, altering my perception of things in just the right way.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit... I mean piss!!! I never imagined there was an author out there who could make urine yield to a hundred and eighty page fictional narrative, but Stephen Graham Jones is the author who answered Nature's Call!!! When I say this novel is about pee, I mean every page is saturated with some form of urinary description, i.e. sheen, yellow, tide, golden, coalesce. I was so immersed in the quirky situations that arose from the 16 year old protagonist, his long suffering girlfriend Prudence, recidivist Uncle Roy and pee obsessed father/curator of Drive Through University that I... You're really going to make me say it, aren't you? I sat in my own piss in order to read this one! Would have been nice to have a Flushboy (TM) on hand while reading! Stephen Graham Jones is a fucking bad ass of epic proportions to write a novel with such a golden message. Outsiders may have said it first: "Stay gold", but Flushboy dives in and LIVES it, then sprays you in the face with it! Jones isn't the author we deserved, but he's the one we needed!

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a novel in which love is the temperature of fresh piss urine luck. I need another story that focuses more on the geriatric micturation mafia and the exploits of Roy who likes to float around in a giant vat of pee during downtime at his job at the Bladder Hut.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

You thought your teen years were awkward, imagine working the window of your family’s drive-thru urinal business. This novel is about as high-concept as Jones gets, and he covers it from every conceivable angle, damn-near well enough to submit a business plan. It’s a unique framing device for exploring otherwise-typical teen angst: chercher la femme and getting out from under your ambitious, near-beer-guzzling father’s thumb. Most of Jones’s books I recommend reading quickly, given their density and complexity, but Flushboy, though simpler in many ways, I had to take in trickles (by which I don’t mean 20 seconds at a time, standing, using my free hand), because over extended periods, its pervasive urine vapors can begin clouding your lungs. Painfully funny stuff, and the narrative adolescent voice is spot-on.

[Jeremy Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read!

Although, I could smell every word of this book! Ewww!!

[Nicholas Lubofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another Stephen Graham Jones book that had me reading late into the night.

I kept having to go read more. (…and when you gotta go, you gotta go, right?) ;-)

Seriously, Flushboy is a fantastic Bildungsroman, and definitely one of Jones's very best novels. I'd recommend it to anyone (except, perhaps, for those who suffer from the most extreme cases of paruresis)!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a quick, easy read—it only took me a week to finish. You wouldn't think a book about pee would be so endearing and beautiful and heartbreaking. There is an ick factor, for sure, and a lot of the time I was cringing and wrinkling my nose—but this book WORKS. It takes everything that's hard and uncertain and agonizing about being a teenager and amplifies it. And—no, maybe we didn't all work THIS particular gross job, but the experiences in this book are universal.

I highly recommend.

[Caleb Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Click the image below to watch my video book review.

[Castille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book-- I read it in one day. It's so original and the idiosyncratic style of writing is superb. I got a little confused towards the end, with the M60 and how the pee got all over the floor. I might have to re-read it.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teen angst done very well, totally original, sad AND funny. Easy voice to fall into, as is all of Stephen's writing.

[Brandon Figliolino · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT.

[David Tromblay · Rating 4 out of 5]

As tragic as one’s teenage years can be; more melancholy than a trip to the bathroom should ever prove. Stephen Graham Jones’ FLUSHBOY is a must read.

[Timothy Patrick Boyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like my dad said, lecturing me about hygiene: I could bring this whole place down.
It didn't sound so bad then.
But not like this. I didn't want it like this.

I kinda loved this book, despite gagging several times throughout. The only way Flushboy's night could have been worse would be if he worked at The Shit Shack instead of The Bladder Hut. Stephen Graham Jones's Flushboy is a singular reading experience; an absurd, ridiculous, often nauseating (I mean, c'mon, who isn't imagining the smell just hearing the name of the place... The Bladder Hut) and hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt coming-of-age story where nothing is off the table. Jones brings our narrator to life with a very lived-in, scatter-brained voice that fills the book with a sense of authenticity. Because of this, the pacing is effortlessly urgent, making for a quick, interesting, and exceedingly weird read. Once again Jones proves to be one of the most interesting writers I've discovered over the past two years.

8.5/10

[Chris Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

This reads like a John Green book. Looking for Alaska wasn't my thing, but at least that one knows it's audience. I didn't know I was getting into a YA something. I don't mind YA, but the book just sits and stalls on the protagonist's teenage embarrassment.

I didn't find this book all that shocking or gross, so neither of those carried it too far for me.

I would recommend Lawn Boy for something similar but much better.

[Rabid Washcloth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would say this story's premise is something that a stoner might have thought up, but that would be a disservice to the majority of stoners.

I'm at a loss with the amount of 4- and 5-star reviews it's earned. It's one of the worst books I've read in a long time, and I only finished it out of morbid curiosity.

[Shelby Hanner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely disgusting but like in a fun way

[Laura Leilani · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first it was amusing but it became darker and more and more hopeless and depressing. It goes back to humorous at the end, but the ending felt vague to me.

[Shawna Briseno · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by NetGalley:
This was a very strange book, but not necessarily in a bad way. The story is told by sixteen-year-old "Flushboy" who is forced to work at his father's groundbreaking business, a drive-thru porta potty of sorts. More complicated than it sounds, there are all kinds of other details involved such as splash guards and tie clips for male customers. The story is really gross and disgusting but I'm sure that's the point. It delves deeply into the typical dynamics of a teenage boy and his relationships-his dysfunctional family, his failing love interest, the teasing he receives from his peers because of the family business. The writing in this book was excellent in spite of the subject matter, or maybe because of it. The only thing that kept me from giving it four stars was the fact that I was left with too many unanswered questions.