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Hey Boy
A novel in a single sentence.
Beware he who is the protagonist of this tale of the fact of fiction and the fiction of fact and whom will be known and perhaps or perhaps not remembered as A and followed through his and everyone else's empty experiences in this place most call the world and in which such empty experiences will include imposed existence and also of course youth and beauty and sex and money and substances and pop music and destruction and self destruction and obsession and annihilation and expensive clothes and jewelry and mc mansions and power and powerlessness and rape and blood and piss and shit and glorious death and necrophilia and cannibalism and torture and sadism and masochism and self important wannabe artists and other such diversions devised to try to mask the meaninglessness all battling to be either true or less true.
Beware he who is the protagonist of this tale of the fact of fiction and the fiction of fact and whom will be known and perhaps or perhaps not remembered as A and followed through his and everyone else's empty experiences in this place most call the world and in which such empty experiences will include imposed existence and also of course youth and beauty and sex and money and substances and pop music and destruction and self destruction and obsession and annihilation and expensive clothes and jewelry and mc mansions and power and powerlessness and rape and blood and piss and shit and glorious death and necrophilia and cannibalism and torture and sadism and masochism and self important wannabe artists and other such diversions devised to try to mask the meaninglessness all battling to be either true or less true.
- GenresHorror
106 pages, Paperback
Published November 19, 2019
1 person is currently reading
687 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 18, 2020
This book could be read as a parody of Dennis Cooper (whose whiting I love and whose blog led me to this), and if done so it's actually wildly funny. However, it also works as its own dark, twisted and highly disturbing tale, and still, it's wildly funny. Others might just be disturbed, yet still thrilled by this book, but who cares, since deciding if something is ironic or not is so hopelessly last century. Either way, I enjoyed the fuck out of this little fucker, also because I'm a sucker for prose that manages to be experimental and push boundaries form- and style-wise but do so without ever becoming difficult, and really, I just gorged my way through this single 100-page sentence.
July 14, 2021
Disturbing and artful. A 100 page long sentence featuring the casual horrors of a boy called A. This book was impossible to put down and left me feeling both at a loss and impressed.
September 3, 2020
I wrote a longer review to this that I will have to copy and paste at some point.
I went into, "Hey Boy", trepidatious - I know the author, it's an experimental work, and it's slim. Strangely, none of my presumptions or fears (about liking a friends work or not liking it and having to dance around the truth) or worries manifested into truths.
"Hey Boy" reads more like music than a book. Late 1900's music, when from France to Germany the best composers were letting their works be tinged with new, atonal, and horrific tones.
This is a fierce, unrelenting work of the grotesque. Starting slowly, for a short duration, and mixing in the poignant, already, with the setup - there's not much of a plot - before, quickly, upping the volume whilst brining in new tools used in torturing the reader. As if beginning with an ominous string section didn't act as a clue to what's now swung into a grand, atonal, screeching hell of beastiality, torture, and other deeds, each occurring in a world where taboos and objective truths or ethics are non-existent as they are in life despite appearances to the contrary. This is not a novel that's in any mood to judge and preach alternatives for the actions of its players, but instead is bent on expressing the ills of the world and how such a vastness of misery goes into creating a diseased mind - a headspace that isn't distant from the "ordinary", for all it takes is a few key things to go awry at the opportune times for this darkened worldview to become the only one, the true one, and, in fact, it feels like the truth because too often it is.
"Hey Boy" is told in a run-on sentence that flows - no clunky section is present - akin to a burst of energy whirling away into the darkest regions, making a musical racket on its way to the purposely-unlit portions of our brains, to lands rarely ventured to containing true horror, and all these locations and emotions originate from a mind that's been through too much and is gathering the pieces together not so much to bring make sense to them, but rather putting the offerings to use as questions, shattered glass collected into a mirror, asking what can even be done about this? What can any individual do to aid those suffering as our unnamed protagonist is here? Is the world of horror and pain described within, "Hey Boy", just a permanent fixture of the tortured human mind? And if yes to all those questions, what can be done now? What will the final painful terror be to turn a hurting person such as this into a catastrophic harm to himself and others and, ultimately, how much of it would be his fault, for it appears the lack of free will is being argued here?
There's questions being raised, but that's not why, "Hey Boy", is one of those highly rare cases of a modern experimental novel that both fulfills and surpasses the promise of a story that could've been simply a schtick - one sentence for an entire novel - and/or vanity project filled with little in the way of knowledge in the history of literature and plenty in poor writing and hollow pages adding up to a book about nothing more than the author.
No, this reads like maniacal music. It's a frenetic exploration from the bizarre, atonal opening, to the following pages that veer around the known with an uncanny tension and then off somewhere to the unknown before ending on a demonic note that satisfies nothing and brings the sounds of hell to a resolve, for now.
Against all odds, from beginning to end, "Hey Boy", flows with no interruption. Mr. Bremont gets inside the readers head and sings angelically and/or bombastically what many of us are afraid to speak about, especially on social media and/or around even the closest of friends, and these insights, along with the author's clear vision, work to create a work both full psychologically, philosophically (think pessimist with traces of Schopenhauer and EM Cioran), and emotionally. This slim little novella is almost draining in its unrelenting horror, page after page, with little to no room for comfort.
It's a nightmarish ode to life-draining melancholy, confusion, and isolation that most of us face as a human race. And it's told within a world too real and, still, too common. However, this is not a manifesto preaching for change, it's a testament to the terror of living with the hells put on a person in this unjust world and how, despite an endless night always blackening in one's head, that person makes it through it all, with no fairy tale ending or ideas spelled out as to how to change what is, despite prize-winning fiction's claims otherwise, for the most part, permanent. To live, knowing this, and to do so with the force of the protagonist, and of its author, is a strength society needs to be more willing to spend time on offering help to, and admiring, instead of selfish help handed out on the basis of identity. Stop pretending you're a good person, we're all in this hell together, and if bits of, "Hey Boy", don't speak to that, and paint it clear enough for you, I don't know what modern book will.
I went into, "Hey Boy", trepidatious - I know the author, it's an experimental work, and it's slim. Strangely, none of my presumptions or fears (about liking a friends work or not liking it and having to dance around the truth) or worries manifested into truths.
"Hey Boy" reads more like music than a book. Late 1900's music, when from France to Germany the best composers were letting their works be tinged with new, atonal, and horrific tones.
This is a fierce, unrelenting work of the grotesque. Starting slowly, for a short duration, and mixing in the poignant, already, with the setup - there's not much of a plot - before, quickly, upping the volume whilst brining in new tools used in torturing the reader. As if beginning with an ominous string section didn't act as a clue to what's now swung into a grand, atonal, screeching hell of beastiality, torture, and other deeds, each occurring in a world where taboos and objective truths or ethics are non-existent as they are in life despite appearances to the contrary. This is not a novel that's in any mood to judge and preach alternatives for the actions of its players, but instead is bent on expressing the ills of the world and how such a vastness of misery goes into creating a diseased mind - a headspace that isn't distant from the "ordinary", for all it takes is a few key things to go awry at the opportune times for this darkened worldview to become the only one, the true one, and, in fact, it feels like the truth because too often it is.
"Hey Boy" is told in a run-on sentence that flows - no clunky section is present - akin to a burst of energy whirling away into the darkest regions, making a musical racket on its way to the purposely-unlit portions of our brains, to lands rarely ventured to containing true horror, and all these locations and emotions originate from a mind that's been through too much and is gathering the pieces together not so much to bring make sense to them, but rather putting the offerings to use as questions, shattered glass collected into a mirror, asking what can even be done about this? What can any individual do to aid those suffering as our unnamed protagonist is here? Is the world of horror and pain described within, "Hey Boy", just a permanent fixture of the tortured human mind? And if yes to all those questions, what can be done now? What will the final painful terror be to turn a hurting person such as this into a catastrophic harm to himself and others and, ultimately, how much of it would be his fault, for it appears the lack of free will is being argued here?
There's questions being raised, but that's not why, "Hey Boy", is one of those highly rare cases of a modern experimental novel that both fulfills and surpasses the promise of a story that could've been simply a schtick - one sentence for an entire novel - and/or vanity project filled with little in the way of knowledge in the history of literature and plenty in poor writing and hollow pages adding up to a book about nothing more than the author.
No, this reads like maniacal music. It's a frenetic exploration from the bizarre, atonal opening, to the following pages that veer around the known with an uncanny tension and then off somewhere to the unknown before ending on a demonic note that satisfies nothing and brings the sounds of hell to a resolve, for now.
Against all odds, from beginning to end, "Hey Boy", flows with no interruption. Mr. Bremont gets inside the readers head and sings angelically and/or bombastically what many of us are afraid to speak about, especially on social media and/or around even the closest of friends, and these insights, along with the author's clear vision, work to create a work both full psychologically, philosophically (think pessimist with traces of Schopenhauer and EM Cioran), and emotionally. This slim little novella is almost draining in its unrelenting horror, page after page, with little to no room for comfort.
It's a nightmarish ode to life-draining melancholy, confusion, and isolation that most of us face as a human race. And it's told within a world too real and, still, too common. However, this is not a manifesto preaching for change, it's a testament to the terror of living with the hells put on a person in this unjust world and how, despite an endless night always blackening in one's head, that person makes it through it all, with no fairy tale ending or ideas spelled out as to how to change what is, despite prize-winning fiction's claims otherwise, for the most part, permanent. To live, knowing this, and to do so with the force of the protagonist, and of its author, is a strength society needs to be more willing to spend time on offering help to, and admiring, instead of selfish help handed out on the basis of identity. Stop pretending you're a good person, we're all in this hell together, and if bits of, "Hey Boy", don't speak to that, and paint it clear enough for you, I don't know what modern book will.
June 18, 2020
I rate this one about a 4.5, actually, but Goodreads doesn't let us do half stars.
This book is filled with sexual acts, but the overall effect is profoundly anti-erotic--and that is precisely Bremont's point. A's body is just one more object, like the expensive clothes and colognes, to be used--it itself does not experience pain or pleasure, only notes when those things are happening. His body is nothing more than a covering to slide into and out of. Another thing to be purchased, used, discarded. A becomes not just a victim of late-stage capitalism, but an embodied expression of it. Because A isn't just a victim--he isn't a person that things happen to, but an active participant in seeking out situations in which things will happen to him. This is masochism taken to the level of de Sade.
Structurally, the book is quite like an epic poem, with repeated stock phrases for things and people. Imagine the Iliad written via high postmodernism, though, structurally. If William S. Burroughs had taken a crack at The Metamorphosis instead of Ovid. Transgressive in all the best ways.
For a small book, this makes a helluvan impact. I can't wait to see more from Bremont in the future.
This book is filled with sexual acts, but the overall effect is profoundly anti-erotic--and that is precisely Bremont's point. A's body is just one more object, like the expensive clothes and colognes, to be used--it itself does not experience pain or pleasure, only notes when those things are happening. His body is nothing more than a covering to slide into and out of. Another thing to be purchased, used, discarded. A becomes not just a victim of late-stage capitalism, but an embodied expression of it. Because A isn't just a victim--he isn't a person that things happen to, but an active participant in seeking out situations in which things will happen to him. This is masochism taken to the level of de Sade.
Structurally, the book is quite like an epic poem, with repeated stock phrases for things and people. Imagine the Iliad written via high postmodernism, though, structurally. If William S. Burroughs had taken a crack at The Metamorphosis instead of Ovid. Transgressive in all the best ways.
For a small book, this makes a helluvan impact. I can't wait to see more from Bremont in the future.
October 30, 2023
book 11 for my october horror reading challenge
this was shockingly not the first book told in one single sentence that i’ve read, but that does not make it any less interesting of an experience.
since i’ve been reading lots of dennis cooper et al. these days the plot of this wasn’t shocking to me, but it was quite intense in a *certain* part, and i did enjoy the experimental writing with the repetitions etc.
it was also pretty entertaining to see the era of internet that i’ve grown up in reflected in a book like this, while also containing a world miles away from my own.
this was shockingly not the first book told in one single sentence that i’ve read, but that does not make it any less interesting of an experience.
since i’ve been reading lots of dennis cooper et al. these days the plot of this wasn’t shocking to me, but it was quite intense in a *certain* part, and i did enjoy the experimental writing with the repetitions etc.
it was also pretty entertaining to see the era of internet that i’ve grown up in reflected in a book like this, while also containing a world miles away from my own.
March 12, 2024
Absolutely not.
Putrid and horrible for the sake of being so, as far as I could tell during my excruciating 100 page journey through this awful book.
Reading this was painful. I initially loved the avant-garde run-on insane writing style, and I expected this to be an incredible narration of the horrors through the eyes of an unstable and detached narrator-- but the unique style did little to counteract the insane passages filled with pedophilia, torture, blood, guts, self-harm, and sadomasochism involving minors. It's vomit-worthy, and not in a way that matters, either.
My issue isn't that there is depravity in the book. My issue is that there doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Is there a poignant message, a unifying point for the ceaseless child maiming and rape I had to sit through to finish this garbage? Because I cannot find one. It is shock for the sake of shock, it seems.
I'm not going to dignify this with a plot synopsis, unfortunately.
Don't read this.
Putrid and horrible for the sake of being so, as far as I could tell during my excruciating 100 page journey through this awful book.
Reading this was painful. I initially loved the avant-garde run-on insane writing style, and I expected this to be an incredible narration of the horrors through the eyes of an unstable and detached narrator-- but the unique style did little to counteract the insane passages filled with pedophilia, torture, blood, guts, self-harm, and sadomasochism involving minors. It's vomit-worthy, and not in a way that matters, either.
My issue isn't that there is depravity in the book. My issue is that there doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Is there a poignant message, a unifying point for the ceaseless child maiming and rape I had to sit through to finish this garbage? Because I cannot find one. It is shock for the sake of shock, it seems.
I'm not going to dignify this with a plot synopsis, unfortunately.
Don't read this.
August 2, 2021
Pretty astonishing how this totally and unselfconsciously breaks all kinds of literary rules. Kind of gross in places and going for shock value but that tends to be the way, I imagine the writer was probably having a right good laugh when writing this.
Read
January 27, 2025suffocating in every way, the type of book one is glad they read but is impossible to enjoy in a typical sense of the word. also impossible to rate, or recommend, so i have not rated it and will not recommend it. extremely vile and casual with its descriptions of the most deviant sexual deviancy i’ve read in a while (and thats really saying something). didnt even have time to think about what i was reading until it was over. best read in one sitting. going to follow this up with some normie horror to remind me of the general standard for freak shit.
January 14, 2024
different read, the content and the writing style makes it take longer even though it’s a short story. somehow elegant and like art? like a punch to the chest
December 8, 2020
I was gifted this book and I know the person who gave it to me has not read the contents because I don’t believe they would have bought it if they knew what it contained .
i’m not sure what the point of this was - to be as edgy and provocative as possible ? i wish i could give this zero stars as it failed to make me feel anything aside from mild revulsion and derision . i’m not sure if there’s supposed to be some deeper meaning to this and i’d be very interested to hear what it is. i am quite baffled by all the five star reviews.
i’m not sure what the point of this was - to be as edgy and provocative as possible ? i wish i could give this zero stars as it failed to make me feel anything aside from mild revulsion and derision . i’m not sure if there’s supposed to be some deeper meaning to this and i’d be very interested to hear what it is. i am quite baffled by all the five star reviews.
January 26, 2025
This was just 100 straight pages of non-stop, run on sentences uttered by a high school edge lord.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews