Diary of a Dirty Boy (1998)

[Simon]

   

Luis Miguel Fuentes has written one of the truly radical texts here: it is totally subversive, heartrending, and undeniably hot. He speaks with the authentic voice of the very sexed youngster born on the wrong side of the tracks and living in a New York tenement. There is something so authentic about his voice - it is the unvarnished experience of this rampant boy. He's a modern-day Rimbaud, a boy-poet of the streets with an emotional reach beyond his years, and it's a portrait of New York as it felt given in street slang, moment by moment. It's likely to shock many readers in every imaginable way, but that is part of the wonder of it. There are truths here that no more mainstream author would dare to say, nor any publisher go near. It's good to see the author has thrived and is now a father himself - a happy ending you dearly want but barely have any hope for.