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Title Mongrel : Essays, Diatribes, Pranks |
List Price: $11.95
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Reviews |
Description:
Since the early 1990s, Justin Chin has made a name for himself as a "Generation Q" poet, performance artist, essayist, actor, cultural commentator, wisecracker, and slammer. As a gay Chinese American with a punk, postmodern, and perpetually impudent attitude, Chin treats his outsider role with relish and aplomb. He first emerged in print with Bite Hard, a 1997 collection of poetry and performance pieces that won critical and popular acclaim. Mongrel, an assemblage of opinion pieces and essays, brings out a radically different side of Chin's talent. These 21 prose pieces map out his positions and thoughts on everything from the best way to eat pancakes to the lure of firing guns, from "rice queens" (Caucasian men attracted to Asian men) to the removal of anal fissures. Chin takes on all topics fearlessly--his dissection of professional white Buddhists is simultaneously shockingly flippant and profoundly insightful--and he always manages to surprise or startle. Sometimes he is simply playful, as in "After Yoko" (in which he maps out various art installations with names like "Dead Fag Piece"), or deadly serious, as when he discusses, in "Death of the Castro," the meaning and limitations of a gay ghetto for a multiracial community. Throughout, Chin manages to steer clear of predictable politics, excessive personal angst, or a smarmy hipper-than-thou tone. Mongrel is a smart, witty, perceptive--and sometimes disturbing--tour through the life of a young gay man who can deliver not only careful observation and critical discussion but also a laugh or a punch on every page. --Michael Bronski
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