num_pages: 308
description: Twelve-year-old choirboy Berry wants nothing more than to remain a choirboy. Choral music and the prospect of divinity thrill him. Desperate to keep his voice from changing, he tries unsuccessfully to castrate himself, and then convinces a clinic to treat him as a transsexual. Berry begins a series of hormone pills, which keep his voice from deepening but also cause him to grow breasts. When his parents and friends discover the truth about him, Berry faces a world of unexpected gender issues that push him into a universe far more complex than anything he has experienced.Abounding with bewitching religious symbolism, self-mutilation, bizarre suburban torture, drugs, class-based violence, and hidden meanings, Choir Boy is a wildly inventive and charming story about an outcast who refuses to grow up gracefully.
language: English
title: Choir Boy
titlecomplete: Choir Boy
genres: Gender, Fiction, Queer Lit, Transgender, Contemporary, Coming Of Age, Young Adult, Gay Fiction, Queer, LGBT
ratings_count: 146
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Transgender/Genderqueer
publisher: Soft Skull Press