BATTY BWOY

The coming of age story of Mark Palmer, a black, gay, Jamaican where “Boom bye bye inna batty bwoy head” (meaning, gunshot to gay men) has replaced the island’s motto “Out of many one people.” The son of an overbearing neglectful mother, he is thrust in an environment that requires a thick skin from torments and socio-economic disparities. Suppressing his “gay tendencies” to detract being bashed or murdered, he migrates to America and breaks free from the closet to a world where he is marginalized. As his life spirals from bad choices, he clings to desperate measures and finds hope.

"With vivid prose and journalistic detail, BATTY BWOY tells the courageous and often times heartbreaking story of a young black gay man coming to terms with his sexual identity in Jamaica and searching for himself, acceptance and love in America."

"Max-Arthur Mantle's BATTY BWOY offers an engaging look at same sex desire from a Jamaican lens within an American context, which thankfully doesn't rely on stereotypes. His characters are fleshy, rough and rendered with complexity and profundity. Perhaps more than anything, BATTY BWOY pulls back the curtains on the terrors associated with pursuing self and desire.BATTY BWOY is a significant, yet haunting contribution to American letters. Quite a feat for a first-time novelist." 

"BATTY BWOY is more than a bildungsroman about a black gay man dealing with the harsh realities of life in Jamaica and America. We meet a resilient, clever, and oftentimes hopeful male protagonist despite a young life filled with many hardships and struggles. He is an indomitable figure who seeks to create a third space for himself, free from the societal, cultural, economic, and racial stigmas that constrain him. An eye-opening debut novel."

"Batty Bwoy" is the Jamaican version of "The Bluest Eyes". I highly recommend Max-Arthur Mantle's novel "Batty Bwoy" because he is dealing with the deep-seated and layered of queer men to wear colonial personas in order to survive. Morrison's Pecola wore a colonial persona that prayed to God for blue eyes in order to survive and Mantle's Mark does the same. Like Pecola and like so many of us, Mark attracted people who treated him the way he thought about himself, which was poorly. Both the tourist and Daniel ignored Mark publicly or ridiculed him. And the wealthy Sebastian thought he could buy Mark. This novel is a cautionary tale about the dangers about not loving one's self and one's sexuality before getting to know anyone else. I had to write this after seeing "Black Girl" directed by Ossie Davis and written by J.e. Franklin. Franklin's Billie Jean is Mantle's Mark.