#25: How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
On writing, identity, and fun queer movies from the 2000s
Good afternoon!
It’s been ridiculously nice out in New York this week, which has upped both my mood and my time doing something other than staring at a screen by at least 50%. I realize that those things are related.
That said, not all of my admittedly-excessive screen time over the past few months has been terrible. My girlfriend and I have been working our way through several lists of queer movies we haven’t seen, and generally giving priority to the ones that look most fun. So, two quick recs if you’re looking for something that 1) is gay and 2) won’t make you cry:
D.E.B.S. This movie is absolutely ridiculous and I enjoyed every second of it. Come for the romance between supervillain Lucy Diamond and spy-in-training Amy Bradshaw, stay for several glorious appearances by Holland Taylor. Bonus points for the fact that it was written and directed by a queer woman! (Trailer here.)
Imagine Me & You. Piper Perabo catches one glimpse of Cersei Lannister while walking down the aisle at her own (heterosexual) wedding and immediately falls in love. Messiness ensues, as does an aggressively-2000s amount of low-rise jeans and a flirty DDR scene. I recommend following it up with a watch of this interview, paying specific attention to the way Lena bites her lip and stares off into the distance after being asked if she wishes they’d had more sex in the film. (Trailer here.)
I welcome any and all recommendations of movies in this vein, as it may be my new favorite genre.
— Becca
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Nonfiction, April 2018
TW: sexual abuse
I ordered my copy of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel in June of last year, a time I now see as just the beginning of the pandemic but then felt like an eternity into it. I hoped (based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews) it would give me some kind of inspiration to spend my empty weeknights and weekends writing.
It did, sort of. My follow-through on the initial burst of motivation it gave me has been iffy, but I blame that squarely on myself—and on the current state of the world—rather than on Alexander Chee.
Anyway, it’s worth mentioning up front that several of the essays in this collection will primarily be interesting to writers, as they focus heavily on craft and process. But the strongest pieces are the ones that focus less on mechanics and more on what it means to write as a Korean American and a gay man.
At one point in Chee’s undergrad studies, for example, an instructor points out that if he’s fast enough, he could be the first Korean American novelist. When Chang Rae Lee publishes Native Speakerin 1995, the instructor points out that he could still be “the first gay one.” In response, he writes:
None of this was inherently interesting to me, however, at age twenty, and felt strange, uncomfortable, to aspire to. I was by now used to people being surprised by me and my background, and their surprise offended me. I was always having to be what I was looking for in the world and wishing that the person I would become already existed — some other I before me. I was forever finding even the tiniest way to identify with someone else to escape how empty the world seemed to be of what I was.
Shortly after finishing the book, I saw this Instagram post from Ocean Vuong calling Chee a “literary daddy,” which, in light of the above sentiment, actually feels kind of beautiful.
The other standout essays here center on his involvement in ACT UP during the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. “After Peter,” in particular, is a gorgeously written tribute to an activist, artist, and former lover of Chee’s who died at just 33 years old in 1994. In it, he writes:
Why am I telling this story? I am, as I’ve said, a minor character, out of place in this narrative, but the major characters of all these stories from the first ten years of the epidemic have left. The men I wanted to follow into the future are dead. Finding them had made me want to live, and I did. I do. … For now, the minor characters are left to introduce themselves, and take the story forward.
I could copy and paste a dozen more paragraphs that hit me like this one. But instead, I’ll just tell you to read the book.
Queer points:
+5 for an entire essay dedicated to Tarot
+8 for the sentence “I really had been in a coven in high school, with my high school boyfriend.”
Buy it from your favorite bookstore on Bookshop