Boulevard

by Jim Grimsley

Newell never really belonged in Pastel, Alabama. Ready for a change, he buys a one-way ticket to New Orleans. The year is 1978 and the rambunctious city beckons with its famous promise of bright lights, excitement, and men everywhere. Newell makes his way, finding a job in a pornographic bookstore and renting a room in the French Quarter. His good nature, good looks, and a daring stunt in a popular bar make him a quick favorite of the town. Soon he has friends. Some are harmless, like Henry, a pudgy sidekick who's a frequent denizen of the porn shop's movie booths. Others prove more dangerous, like party-boy Mark, Newell's first beau, who has a penchant for recreational drugs. Finally, Newell encounters the volatile Jack, who shows Newell the blackest heart of the city.

"Boulevard," Jim Grimsley's fifth novel, reminds us that Grimsley is what Publishers Weekly calls "an accomplished stylist and a complex moralist." He takes one character's dream and reveals what can happen when dreams are fulfilled.

Genres: Gay, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Gay Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 19, 2002

About the author

Jim Grimsley published a new novel in May of 2022, The Dove in the Belly, out from Levine Querido. The book is a look at the past when queer people lived more hidden lives than now. Grimsley was born in rural eastern North Carolina. He has published short stories and essays in various quarterlies, including DoubleTake, New Orleans Review, Carolina Quarterly, New Virginia Review, the LA Times, and the New York Times Book Review. Jim’s first novel Winter Birds, was published in the United States by Algonquin Books in the fall of 1994. Winter Birds won the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. He has published other novels, including Dream Boy, Kirith Kirin, and My Drowning. His books are available in Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese. He has also published a collection of plays and most recently a memoir, How I Shed My Skin. His body of work as a prose writer and playwright was awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005. For twenty years he taught writing at Emory University in Atlanta.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently lots of people don't like this book - which I find odd - Grimsley writes beautifully - in the years since I first read this book images - the boy buying a single glass a cheap store to serve all his needs in the room he rents - have stayed with me as much as the more erotic and colourful episodes. So all I can say is that I loved this book, would recommend it to anyone and everyone, and cannot fathom those who didn't like it.

I would love to say more but it has been too long since I read it. What I can say is that the novel I will definitely buy in the near future.

[Gary Garth McCann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've liked everything I've read by Grimsley. This might be my favorite. Seeing the seamy side of New Orleans in the 1970s would be delightful enough, but add the fact that you're seeing it through the eyes of a teen from a small town in Alabama who's come to the Big Easy to start life on his own. My heart goes out to the boy as I enjoy his life in a way he can't because he's living it.

[Holyfool · Rating 2 out of 5]

BOULEVARD: Mr. G's New Orleans the 'hood' novel.
For pages after pages his unconflicted main character was dragged through over cloned and boring vignettes of pre-AIDS heaven New Orleans life style.
The story line and it's writing was not impressive, basically I could not wait to finish this book and get it over with.
Probably it was Mr. Grimsley's own play ground back in his days. He might had known these types of characters and related to them, but he should have just kept them to himself.

[Alex Jiménez]

it’s hard to rate this book because it just wasn’t for me. i’d recommend the author’s other books comfort & joy and the dove in the belly over this one!

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the last book by Jim Grimsley I will read. It was boring, boring, boring. The plot was boring, the characters were boring, the sex was boring. It was completely depressing and had not one bit of up-beat action or even one interesting character. The protagonist, a teenage boy named Newell, with whom I assume Grimsley wants his readers to empathize, was a hopelessly naive teenage kid from some backwater place in Alabama. It took the first 137 pages before he realized he really, really was gay in spite of the fact he somehow ended up working in a gay restaurant as a busboy surrounded by other cute boys and then miraculously as a cashier in an adult bookstore. This part of the story has been told so much better an incalculable number of times by so many other authors.

OK, so the author takes almost half the book to take his main character to the all-too-obvious self-realization that he likes other guys -- so the second half has to be better with Newell fulfilling the joys of his newly-admited sexual orientation in the thrilling gay subculture of New Orleans, right? Nope. Some really weird indecipherable italicized text from New Orleans' historical past springs up out of nowhere in the second chapter, I guess as some attempt to show us that Grimsley is a history buff -- I can't think of any other reason and it has no connection whatsoever to the emotional development of the boy Newell. It does add a mysterious creepiness somehow I suppose to evoke the rising threat of the city of New Orleans itself. At this point it seemed that the city itself was going to go after Newell and do him harm. Well, how quaint! Do I detect a whiff of nasty authorial judgement coming in the next chapters?

The succeeding chapters darken the milieu even more with the introduction of, Oh My God!, the suggestions of prostitution going on behind closed doors and on other floors (thankfully neither we nor Newell are allowed the moist thrill of witnessing it), and even illicit drug use - mad marijuana and, shivers, stimulating cocaine, and even worse...but I can't bring myself to list out the horrible encyclopedia of drug names we are presented with!

Then Grimsley shows us actual sex between men IN BARS AND IN PUBLIC! At this point I couldn't wait for the book to end, since the horrors and terrors of New Orleans were certainly going to bring the destruction of our boy hero Newell. But just in the nick of time, the forces of justice and, presumably self-righteous authors gay and straight, come to our hero's rescue and arrest the evil landlord, shut down the whorehouses, and by implication, all the gay bars too, and the nasty places where actual sex happens, and -- with us devout readers sincerely relieved -- thus rescue Newell from the evil forces of the big, bad city.

Phew!

I also want to point out the considerable tour-guide value of the novel for anyone expecting to visit New Orleans. The author takes us round and round ... and round and round ... the streets in the French quarter. I was able to memorize the exact geography of those streets and avenues since he listed them so, so many times; sometimes clockwise, sometimes anti clockwise, sometimes stepping into a bar, sometimes sitting by the river -- each and every time Newell went on a walk. It was very helpful. Unfortunately -- and this sadly reduces the geographic detail the author is able to present, and indeed limits its usefulness as a tour guide -- it was always raining, buckets and torrents and deluges of rain, sloppy mold-inducing rain (wait...did I miss an obvious baptismal reference?) ... and it was all so funereally dark that I couldn't really see anything.

Summary: Grimsley adds nothing at all to the existing vast number of coming-out stories, many of which are truly excellent and deeply moving, and instead presents a very simple tale very simply told and so completely predictable -- along with an unwelcome whiff (blast? downpour?) of religious judgement. It you insist on reading something by Jim Grimsley, perhaps because you heard he truly is a good author, try Dream Boy, which is an excellent novel (I rated it a full 5 stars), free of the moralizing of Boulevard and full of wonder and mystery. It is one of my favorites.

[J.A. Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a Jim-Grims fan to the core, but I'll agree with other fans who put this at the bottom of the list. There's still plenty of good stuff going on -- Grimsley has a way with language, and there were several sentences I read over and over again to memorize, or jotted down in my notebook. I loved the hint of SM (really want to see the Grims try an all-out BDSM novel. It would punch 50 Shades in the face. Or somewhere else.) But ultimately it was hard to connect with the main character, and I got a little tired of the porn shop scenes (I know, me?) I would never dissuade anyone from reading it. But if you're new to Grimsley, start with Dream Boy or Winter Birds or My Drowning. And then treat yourself to Comfort & Joy and Kirith Kirin. And then someday read Boulevard and be like, "Huh."

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book really compelling. I don't know that i would say that i enjoyed it, because i spent a lot of time feeling so sad for several of the characters, but the writing was evocative, beautiful and startling and grotesque and languid and i'm very glad that i read it.

Caveat: you best be down for some graphic sex and some BDSM stuff if you pick this one up. If you can't handle reading the details of such scenes, you won't make it through this book.

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 2 out of 5]

A confusing/ed and unsatisfying book without much of a story or a purpose.

The indirect streams of consciousness we are presented with in a very dry and minimalist language can at time become tedious in their pointless minutiae and I often found myself hoping for something to actually happen (usually in vain). The little that does actually happen is unexplained and usually baffling.

On page 266, one of the characters informs us they think the hero is "possessed of a larger personality than usual" but if that's the case Grimsley completely fails to reveal it to us.

The chosen structure of the narrative (if that's what it is) creates an unexpected sense of detachment and despite our being inside the heads of the characters we learn very little about their motives and end up not really caring for any of them.

I wish I had got to read the book outlined in the blurb at the back which sounds so much more alive. There are more rewarding books to give your time to, out there.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clean faced kid from rural Alabama escapes to New Orleans and starts a descent into depravity. Does he escape?

This is my least favorite book by Grimsley. It is well written but so slow. Newell is slow and boring. So is his story. It was like I feel when laying around at home with nothing to do or want to do. Perhaps a point of the novel. I could not even develop an image of him in my mind—unusual for me. The most interesting character one Miss Sophia seems to pop up out of nowhere to add commentary on Newell and his relationships. Her story, developed, would have been more interesting. One gets the idea that children should wary of being alone in New Orleans perhaps another of the novels points.

I did not enjoy the novel. 5 of 10*

[Kitty]

DNF at 50%.
Jim Grimsley is one of my all time favorite authors, his novels tend to be quick, engaging reads that I, a victim of domestic abuse, can always relate to. The issue with Boulevard is that a novel about a twink from Alabama working at a sex shop really isn't relatable. Theoretically, this type of narrative should be right up my alley but for some reason Boulevard just got repetitive and boring.

[Marnie Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish

[Bart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-executed, I would even say finely-crafted, but small book. The story is unarresting. I’d like to see these characters have had much more interesting thins to do . . .

[William Freeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started well but gradually faded

[Cecil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully bold.

[James Garman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2020 reading of this book seems to have been done at a bad time, what with the health scare of Covid and my apparent lack of being in the right mood for this particular book. But now in 2025, I was in a different space emotionally so I was better able to understand and enjoy this book which concerned 1976 New Orleans.

Newell is the main character and he comes to New Orleans because he feels a need for something bigger than small town Alabama living with his grandmother and her live in boyfriend. He finds a job in a diner first and then in a dirty book store while he works for a man that might just be in league with the mafia. The manager is a man named Mac. Also working there is a true New Orleans character named Miss Sophie who confuses Newell with either the man she loved once upon a time or herself in her male persona. She herself is greatly confused on this issue.

Newell makes friends, enemies, has affairs, get tired of them and moves. Until he meets a person that causes him to think that his time in the city that care forgot might just be over.

There is drug useage aplenty and certainly all the anonymous and semi-anonymous sex one can imagine. But still the beauty of New Orleans's culture rings though although Newsom doesn't spend much of his time on culture endeavors but then he is still a very young man.

I recommend this novella to those who find the 1970's and 1970s gay culture interesting or as historically something to be looked back and understand. It also reminded me personally who I loved New Orleans for years before I moved here.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the thing about novels set in New Orleans — the place can overwhelm the story and the characters. And also, the writer has to carefully avoid not turning the place into a cliche.
Unfortunately, Grimsley slips into both of the crevices. And he's such a skillful writer....
But "Boulevard," even with its droning on and on about galleries and loggias or the Cabildo, is an interesting and fast read.
But part of me wanted to know more about Newell. This is a story about his coming into an identity. I would like to have known more of his thoughts, how he made this huge transformation. He's such a central figure at the beginning of the novel, and then Grimsley seems to waste far many pages on the troubled Miss Sophia.

And I guess the reader might br left wondering if Newell ever goes back to New Orleans — to visit or to live. I would say yes. It's an amazing place where he grew up very fast and was nearly sucked into its sort of sinister undercurrent. But he proved, he's in control.

[Vyolet Mychael · Rating 2 out of 5]

a fan Mr Grimsley, I must say this book was quite a letdown. Not once did I feel any real connection to the main characters, which is certainly a feat bc I have lived through very similar circumstances as Newell.

Moving at a snail's pace, I kept waiting for something interesting to happen. I actually bought this over a year ago but shelved it after about 70 pages bc I was bored. I now see I wasn't missing much.

Not that this is a bad book by any means but after closing it I was left with a "Huh, ok then" feeling. I usually get fully immersed into books and leave emotionally depleted having grown attach to several different lives after finishing a story. Not so much this time.

If you're looking for a listless tour guide of New Orleans intermixed with dry gay sex scenes told from a clinical eye, this is for you, otherwise, check out his other books.

[Elli · Rating 2 out of 5]

i couldnt even finish this book. it was interesting at first and i loved all the references of new orleans streets, landmarks, and history, but after reading the chapter about miss sophia and upon meeting mark it just flat lined and got boring, then i realized that this story really has no plot. i tried reading the entire thing but im sad to say this is the first book that i wont be reading to the end in years

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good book about some of the charecters that live in New Orleans.Jim lived here during his college years and has a real feeling for this city. He lives in Mississippi now I believe. He attends the Saints and Sinners in New Orleans on a regular basis and is a very interesting person. He could have added even more bizarre charecters but did a good job.

[Katie M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for maybe another Dream Boy or Comfort and Joy. Instead all I got was lots of cruising in 1970s New Orleans. Le yawn.

[Roclaf Alter -Ego · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Grimsley as an author and this book did little to change my positive opinion of him.

Read this book in a single day it was a nice lite read that generally kept moving along. Also a number of interesting people appear within the narrative.

I wondered however if the lead character's motto was " I've always relied on the kindness of strangers."

[Michael Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the lives of four protagonists points of view all told separately, yet somehow weave all together. My only problem is that as innovative as the book is written, it feels lazy. I also think I have heard this story before told in many different ways -- coming out stories. It is better than many though and it is worth the read.

[Mary L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

How did the author manage to make a book about a young gay man who moves to New Orleans during the height of the 1970's disco era and gets a job in a porn store such an incredibly boring read?! This is normally something I would relish with utter joy and delight, but instead it felt like an awful assigned text that I had to wade through. Very, very disappointing.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it starts as what seems to be a typical coming-of-age / coming-out novel, Grimsley has written something for mroe interesting. Newell, the main character, is fascinating because he is both naive and wise.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very well written tale, some parts were VERY well written, about a young man who goes to the big city and, in the process of coming out, finds more than he barganed for. The story kept me turning pages, but the plot left me unsatified. It's a simple tale, a bit too simple for me.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grimsley is one of the best. Newell travels to New Orleans from a small southern town and quickly acclimates to the gay culture. I have to agree with an earlier reviewer that the setting of New Orleans overpowers the story line. Maybe he planned it that way? This is a dark novel.

[Jwsrauch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great coming of age story of a man of the 70's (novel stands the test of time) who happens to do so in New Orleans' French Quarter. A great read for those in love w/ the city and wanting a sense of the Quarter's city of the 70's.

[Blondiemem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good read of the seedy side of 1970's New Orleans gay lifestyle. Character is young, naive and likeable. Sort of a nice contrast to his surroundings. Easy read. A little bit dated in some of the references, but still reads quite well!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his strongest showing, but quite good

[Jason Gehring · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book was just stupid. that really sums up everything: from the characters to the plot to the writing. just stupid.