Works by
Martin Pousson
(Writer)

Fiction

• No Place, Louisiana (2002) - Finalist for the John Gardner Award in Fiction
  Nita is sixteen, working in a diner, putting up with the coarse advances of her stepfather, and living on the edge of Jennings, Louisiana, when her brother sets her up on a blind date with Louis Toussaint. He is rude and cheap, Nita thinks, not exactly what she has in mind. But when he offers an engagement ring, Nita accepts what she believes is her ticket out of the place, the life she already feels is stifling her. She deserves better, and Louis can give it to her, if only he will work hard enough.

  So begins a relentless cycle of expectation and disappointment that reaches its destructive zenith when two children are born and become the focus of Nita's fiercest hopes and most damaging desires. Her affection becomes a prison her son cannot escape, even as she denies her daughter. Soon Nita's incessant demands, seething prejudices, and unpredictable rage drive her family to the precipice, and over.

  No Place, Louisiana is an unflinching vision of family relationships pushed to the breaking point, which Martin Pousson conveys with a rare empathy and understanding. Its exploration of themes deeply rooted in Southern fiction, and its ability to peer into the secret hearts of its misfit characters invite comparison to the works of Dorothy Allison and Carson McCullers.

Poetry

• Sugar (2005) -- Finalist, 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry
  Martin Pousson takes the hard-earned wisdom he’s gained as an American outsider three times over--Southerner, Cajun, and queer--and lets it dissolve on his burning poet’s tongue. This cycle of short, but far from syrupy sweet, poems begins with a fey boy’s odyssey through the labyrinths of masculinity, race, desire, and family tragedy in his childhood home of Louisiana. It follows the man as he escapes the South to find himself an outsider again, only this time in the gay ghettos of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It ends with the man reborn a fierce writer who embraces No Place as his home and himself and other enlightened misfits as his family.