Yield Book

In his evocative and mesmerizing debut novel, Lee Houck depicts a contemporary Manhattan thrumming with sex and violence as seen through the eyes of Simon—a twenty-something part-time hustler with a cadre of loyal, sometimes floundering friends. As Simon grows increasingly involved with a gorgeous, guileless client named Aiden, he tries to navigate a path to fulfillment in a city where love and honesty are as dangerous as they are rare. Witty, spare, and rapier-sharp, this is an exceptional story of the friendships that sustain us, the families we create, and the pain and joy that are always within reach, waiting for us to yield...

"Brisk and buoyant, this engaging debut captures big-city hustle with small-town heart." —Richard Labonte

"Witty and wrenching, Yield is required reading for anyone who wants to know what it means to be young, gay and without a roadmap in today's world." —Vestal McIntyre, author of Lake Overturn

"Yield is a bold and shocking story concerned with humanism—it's a dazzling and sometimes dangerous foray into post-queer realism." —Charlie Vázquez, author and blogger

Publishers Weekly

A spiritually tormented hustler searches for salvation in Houck's moving debut. After gay New York City hustler Simon and his friend Louis get savagely beaten, Louis turns into a hermit and Simon fills with an inexpressible rage that he tries to tamp down with a chain of empty sexual encounters. Things begin to change when Aiden, a customer of Simon's, wants an actual relationship, and soon Simon's doing what he never thought possible: falling in love. Helped by Aiden and his friends, Simon examines his complex views of sex, intimacy, and violence and tries to find a way to heal. Houck's sparse prose is a nice match for a grittily portrayed New York that perpetually teeters on the edge of violence, and the city's and gay culture's larger problems are a perfect counterweight for the internal struggles of a young man trying to redefine himself. Solid, unsentimental storytelling distinguish Houck's first time out. (Sept.)