An uninhibited portrait of growing up gay in 1980s Alabama: exploring art and sex with "more layered insight than the page count should allow" (Hanif Abdurraqib, MTV News).

DeShawn lives a high, creative, and promiscuous life in San Francisco. But when he's called back to his cramped Alabama hometown for his uncle's funeral, he's hit by flashbacks of handsome, doomed neighbors and sweltering Sunday services. Amidst prickly reminders of his childhood, DeShawn ponders family, church, and the men in his life, prompting the question: Who deserves love?

A modern American classic, Since I Laid My Burden Down is a raw and searing look into the intersections of memory, Blackness, and queerness.