Brontez Purnell is nothing if not prolific. The author of seven books, most recently Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse, he’s also a musician, filmmaker, dancer, and choreographer. Purnell started publishing zines at fourteen. At the center of all his pursuits, he says, is his preoccupation with language, which drives his wide-ranging body of work. Purnell’s fiction, often depicting queer life on the margins, is equal parts rollicking and intimate, wickedly funny one moment and startlingly sincere the next. His stories “pinwheel,” as Parul Sehgal wrote of his book 100 Boyfriends, winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

Purnell’s latest story appears in our December 2025 issue. Though it takes place over a single, turbulent January evening—a man narrowly avoids being splattered across the freeway by a dozing cab driver after sneaking a bump at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting—the story’s true subject is the passage of time, and what happens when you’ve seen more of life than you ever expected to. As the narrator puts it, “I miss absolutely nothing about being young—internally, I know I was meant to be an old man—but goddamn if I know how I am going to get there in one piece.”

I spoke to Purnell about relationships, recovery, and writing as thinking.

Jess Bergman: “You Might Live Longer Than You Think” is about a relapse, but it’s not a tragic story. It’s tender, and funny: one moment that really makes me laugh is when the narrator remembers confusing staff during his first stint in rehab by demonstrating such thorough insight into the nature of his addiction already. How do you find the right tone when it comes to writing about substance abuse?

Brontez Purnell: I have gone in and out of various recovery programs. I think that people who have been through stuff like that have some of the most tragic stories, but they’re also some of the funniest and most tender people I know, because they’re navigating life with a kind of illness, and you have to have humility to do that. You have to have strength to do that. And I do think that humor is a form of strength. It helps us. It’s a tool in the box that we use to help us navigate what is very absurd about the life around us. I do not believe that staunch stoicism is something that helps people heal.

JB: The narrator in your story is at this moment where he’s staring down a middle age that he wasn’t sure that he would reach, and he’s grappling with the possibility that he might live longer than either his biological father or his stepfather did. This seems to scare him as much as it comforts him. And so, I was curious: When you think about the story’s title, and the quote that it comes from, do you see that as an affirmation, as a warning, or both?

BP: Both. Because I was definitely a punk rocker. I was really steeped in counterculture. Also, I come from several marginalized communities. A lot of my friends always say, you know, “I just didn’t think I would live this long.” And it’s not that we thought that we would be dead. It’s more that we couldn’t exactly picture what the future would look like. Some of us still can’t picture what the future looks like. The thing I carry with me is, I may not have a future, or be able to picture a future, but I always have a present. And if your present never ends, you end up getting old. So, take it one day at a time. 

JB: The end of “You Might Live Longer Than You Think” takes us back to the cab driver who nearly kills your protagonist in the opening scene in a really satisfying way. But there are a lot of unexpected detours and memories and moments of free association in between. Do you like to keep readers guessing about where a story will wind up, or think about structure in a particular way when you’re writing? 

BP: I write the way I think my mind works, and how a lot of people’s minds work, when recounting something. I’ve always thought about things in a very fragmented way, or like a  mixtape: What feelings is this situation bringing up? And how do they all tie together? My mind goes on lots of jaunts and detours when I’m trying to reach a catharsis—I think it reflects the many paths that minds will go on on their way to understanding the meaning of something.

JB: I like that you said “recounting,” because one of the aspects I so enjoyed about this story is that it can feel like someone telling you a great piece of gossip, in the best way—there’s this quality of someone confiding in you. I wonder how you would characterize your style, if you think of it as conversational, or if you think of it more like following the shape of a thought.

BP: I guess following the shape of a thought. One of my favorite short stories ever written is Grace Paley’s “Dreamer in a Dead Language.” Someone gave me her book when I was twenty-two, and when I read that story, I was like, “Oh, this is the way I think about things all the time.” There are these clips and pieces of information that are being expounded on. But then always, as much as you bubble out, finding a way to bring the story back to the center that holds it.

JB: In “Dreamer in a Dead Language,” Faith, one of Paley’s recurring characters, visits her parents’ retirement home only to find out that her ex-husband has recently been there too. There’s a lovely scene in your story where the narrator is thinking about his own ex-husband, specifically a memory of them together from when he was packing to go to rehab. Exes have featured pretty prominently in your work before, especially in 100 Boyfriends. What draws you to the dynamic between former lovers in your writing?

BP: When you get to be my age, and you think about the breadth of people you have met—you know, I used to have so much anxiety around relationships. But the more people you meet, you realize that people come and go. They’re there to teach you lots of things. The memory and the spirit of a person can carry you for a lifetime and stay with you. They do inform. They inform a lot, especially the people in your life who, at a particular turning point, helped shape your way of thinking. I think that’s always what I’m trying to document: the people who were around at the most crucial points.