Virility Rituals of North American Teenage Boys (Paperback)

In the Virility Rituals of North American Teenage Boys tells stories set at the boundary between real men and boys in man drag. In the title story, a man tells the various myths associated with his manhood from the Breakfast Club inspired obsession with "Elephantitis of the nuts" to an unexpected bodily testing sequence executed under the florescent glare of middle school lights. The characters in the fourteen stories live in the shadow of a failed macho culture. These stories have appeared in Birkensnake, The Chicago Review, Filter Magazine, MonkeyBicycle, Roethke Readings, Spork, and TRNSF Magazine. The Review of Contemporary Fiction wrote of Briggs' stories, "As with the songs, the stories are all about life out of kilter, told with charm from the perspective of the odd as norm, not so much magical realism than delightfully pernicious absurdity."