Hey, Joe

A debut novel starring Joe Keith, originally introduced in The New Yorker, finds the young man coming of age amidst the bawdy splendor of New Orleans, where his entire life changes in one night. Reprint.

Literature & Fiction

NEIHART, Ben

Literary

BERKLEY

A gay teenager looking for love in Louisiana stumbles into a conspiracy to tamper with a verdict, in an atmospheric novel about New Orleans nightlife by an up-and-coming writer for The New Yorker. A first novel. 15,000 first printing.

United States

Simon&Schuster

Twenty-year-old Drew Burke, a working-class college student in Baltimore, finds himself lured by wealth into a complex, sensual friendship with Bahar Richards and her brother Jake, a relationship that draws him into a dark and dangerous mystery from the past

Burning Girl

Rob Weisbach Books

Drew Burke is twenty--a working-class college student in Baltimore. Seduced by the wealth that surrounds him, Drew finds himself drawn into a complex and sensually charged freindship with Bahar RTichards and her brother, Jake. Then, over an intimate long weekend at the Richards family home, certain shocking details about Jake's past come to light, and the more Drew learns, the more he suspects he hasn't heard the whole story. Torn between brother and sister, whose versions of the past don't quite match, Drew becomes caught in a maze of half-lies and manipulations as he tries to figure out who to trust, and, ultimately, who to love.A young scholarship student, the rich girl who befriends him, her handsome brother who wedges himself dangerously between the two; a rape, a murder, horrifying photographs found at the crime scene; and the undeniably sensual draw our hero feels to both sister and brother, who may or may not have blood on their hands. Fresh from the success of his critically acclaimed debut, Hey, Joe, Ben Neihart delivers a searingly intelligent, emotionally gripping thriller with a triangle of betrayal at its heart.Drew Burke is twenty -- a working class college student in Baltimore. Seduced by the wealth that surrounds him, Drew finds himself drawn into a complex and sensually charged friendship with fellow student Bahar Richards and her brother, Jake. With Bahar, its a soulmates bond, with Jake, it's a romance born of a fierce sexual attraction. But a strange wall of mystery surrounds Jake, which Drew can't seem to penetrate. Then over an intimate long weekend at the Richards' family home, Jake confides to Drew that in high school he was wrongly accused of a grisly crime. The more details Drew learns, the more he suspects he hasn't heard the entire truth -- from Jake or Bahar. Torn between brother and sister, whose versions of the story don't quite match, Drew becomes caught in a maze of half lies and manipulations as he tries to figure out who to trust and, ultimately, who to love. Fierce, haunting and fuelled by an undeniably powerful voice, Burning Girl established Ben Neihart as a major new talent of his generation.A young scholarship student, the rich girl who befriends him, her handsome brother who wedges himself dangerously between the two; a rape, a murder, horrifying photographs found at the crime scene; and the undeniably sensual draw our hero feels to both sister and brother, who may or may not have blood on their hands. Fresh from the success of his critically acclaimed debut, Hey, Joe, Ben Neihart delivers a searingly intelligent, emotionally gripping thriller with a triangle of betrayal at its heart.
Drew Burke is twenty -- a working class college student in Baltimore. Seduced by the wealth that surrounds him, Drew finds himself drawn into a complex and sensually charged friendship with fellow student Bahar Richards and her brother, Jake. With Bahar, its a soulmates bond, with Jake, it's a romance born of a fierce sexual attraction. But a strange wall of mystery surrounds Jake, which Drew can't seem to penetrate. Then over an intimate long weekend at the Richards' family home, Jake confides to Drew that in high school he was wrongly accused of a grisly crime. The more details Drew learns, the more he suspects he hasn't heard the entire truth -- from Jake or Bahar. Torn between brother and sister, whose versions of the story don't quite match, Drew becomes caught in a maze of half lies and manipulations as he tries to figure out who to trust and, ultimately, who to love. Fierce, haunting and fuelled by an undeniably powerful voice, Burning Girl established Ben Neihart as a major new talent of his generation.

Burning Girl: A Novel

Harper-perennial

Contemporary

Weisbach Morrow

From acclaimed novelist Ben Neihart, a vibrant portrait of gay Harlem's most memorable diva: A'Lelia Walker.
When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'. 
In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance.

Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low Culture

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Bloomsbury USA

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NEIHART, Ben. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by NEIHART, Ben

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NEIHART, Ben. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Hey, Joe

Hey, Joe

Burning Girl

Burning Girl: A Novel

Burning Girl

Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low Culture