Slant
SKU:
9781590211212
$15.00
$15.00
by Timothy Wang
Growing up, "fitting in" was a completely foreign concept to James. He was Asian, awkward, and poor in a sea of wealthy, white, attractive Midwesterners. At college in Boston, however, the diversity of the new world around him gives him hope that he can finally find his groove. With his intensely logical and linear MIT mind, he identifies all the parts of himself he believes are offensive to others, and methodically changes them one by one. In the pursuit of total self transformation - including body, skin, hair, clothes, personality, and behavior - James becomes completely lost and bewildered, having lost any trace of the person he once was. Along the way, he betrays himself several times for love, lust, and money - engaging in dangerous drug use and sex to please his lover, Stan, and manipulating his admirer, Michael, to pay for plastic surgery on his Asian eyes. Just when he thinks he has lost himself for ever, tragedy at home forces him to reestablish contact with the person he once was.
Paperback, 220 pages
Growing up, "fitting in" was a completely foreign concept to James. He was Asian, awkward, and poor in a sea of wealthy, white, attractive Midwesterners. At college in Boston, however, the diversity of the new world around him gives him hope that he can finally find his groove. With his intensely logical and linear MIT mind, he identifies all the parts of himself he believes are offensive to others, and methodically changes them one by one. In the pursuit of total self transformation - including body, skin, hair, clothes, personality, and behavior - James becomes completely lost and bewildered, having lost any trace of the person he once was. Along the way, he betrays himself several times for love, lust, and money - engaging in dangerous drug use and sex to please his lover, Stan, and manipulating his admirer, Michael, to pay for plastic surgery on his Asian eyes. Just when he thinks he has lost himself for ever, tragedy at home forces him to reestablish contact with the person he once was.
Paperback, 220 pages
"Timothy Wang has written a great first novel, and the author's blurb promises a second. Any library or reader interested in new work by young gay writers, especially of non-European ethnicities, will want this book." - James Doig Anderson for the GLBT-Roundtable of the American Library Assoc.
"Slant is Timothy Wang's debut novel. I could say that this is a coming out story because in a way it is, but that would be deceiving and simplistic to say the least. Instead, Wang places the main focus of this novel on racism experienced by Asian men within the gay community. He maintains that focus through excellent writing and by using the strong narrative voice of the main character James, a young man whose initial confusion about sexual identity is compounded by ethnicity." - Impressions of a Reader
"Wang showed considerable power as a novelist. It's important that writers attack issues as problematic as race with a dexterous mix of humor and horror, of shock and recognition, making Slant a strong debut. I'm looking forward to the author's next book." - Tom Cardamone, Lambda Literary Award winning author of Green Thumb.
Wang tackles the issues that Asians and Asian Americans experience growing up. These issues are obvious and honest. We've all been there, the confusion of growing up different from what society mainly consist of, the self-loathe of our culture because we were watching shows that didn't have culture, things that the majority population can't seem to understand. --8Asians.com
Read a SF LGBT Literary Examiner interview with Timothy Wang
"Slant is Timothy Wang's debut novel. I could say that this is a coming out story because in a way it is, but that would be deceiving and simplistic to say the least. Instead, Wang places the main focus of this novel on racism experienced by Asian men within the gay community. He maintains that focus through excellent writing and by using the strong narrative voice of the main character James, a young man whose initial confusion about sexual identity is compounded by ethnicity." - Impressions of a Reader
"Wang showed considerable power as a novelist. It's important that writers attack issues as problematic as race with a dexterous mix of humor and horror, of shock and recognition, making Slant a strong debut. I'm looking forward to the author's next book." - Tom Cardamone, Lambda Literary Award winning author of Green Thumb.
Wang tackles the issues that Asians and Asian Americans experience growing up. These issues are obvious and honest. We've all been there, the confusion of growing up different from what society mainly consist of, the self-loathe of our culture because we were watching shows that didn't have culture, things that the majority population can't seem to understand. --8Asians.com
Read a SF LGBT Literary Examiner interview with Timothy Wang