Performance and Detachment: Explorations of Race and Sexuality in Brontez Purnell’s Since I Laid My Burden Down (2017)

Resumen

This article argues that Brontez Purnell’s Since I Laid My Burden Down (2017) challenges ‘homonormative’ perspectives of race, class, gender and sexuality by presenting the experiences of a gay, working class African American from Alabama. It argues that the text establishes the importance of intersectional queer literature, and foregrounds two distinct methods by which Purnell addresses homonormativity, detachment and performance. Detachment a is defined as a form of relief in dealing with a “homophobic world” (Price, 2015), of ongoing awareness of collective trauma processing. This article that the protagonist DeShawn engages in detachment to deal with repression based on race, sexuality and class, in addition to his experiences with loss and grief. This coalesces in DeShawn, with Purnell presenting a unique queer experience as a result. In addition, I argue that in practicing detachment, DeShawn also practices performance and performativity in relation to his sexuality. Using the work of Judith Butler and Jacques Lacan, this article argues that Purnell utilises the Lacanian objet a as a device by which DeShawn exemplifies and performs too. As a fetishized other, DeShawn is simultaneously sexually desired and repressed by other, mainly white, men, on grounds of his race, sexuality and class. It concludes that Purnell presents a unique experience of a queer, African American identity in contemporary USA, exploring the complex and entangled intersections of race, class and sexuality. His experiences serve to both liberate and repress him, with Purnell presenting a story of survival preservation in a hetero- and homonormative world.