Granta.com’s “Portraits of My Father”

From Granta.com comes a beautifully written piece by Alexander Chee on his father, which is actually a series of recollections on authors and their fathers.  I don’t think there’s anything more that needs to be said by me since I’d just give it away.  Just read it.

It made me wonder how I’d write about my own dad.  Given that he is unusually taciturn, even for Asian American dads–I’ve gotten used to having whole conversations where his only responses were nuanced grunts that seemed to convey more meanings than him actually speaking full sentences to me, I’d probably write more about that.  In fact, I know he needs my help if he actually needs to talk to me, as in, have a conversation.  I think that’s how his marriage to my mom lasted for so long–and how I have an apparently hyperacute sense of intuition and reading body language, since I look at those cues more than anything when having a conversation with anyone. Having a conversation with my dad otherwise can be pretty infuriating if you don’t pick up those signals.

(Hat tip: Christine, via twitter)

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About Efren

Efren is a 30-something queer Filipino American guy living in San Francisco. In the past, he was a wanna-be academic even teaching in Asian American studies at San Francisco State, a wanna-be queer rights and HIV activist, and he used to "blog" when that meant spewing one's college student angst using a text editor on a terminal screen to write in a BBS or usenet back in the early 90s. For all his railing against the model minority myth, he's realized he's done something only a few people can claim--getting into UCSF twice, once for a PhD program in medical sociology which he left; and then for pharmacy school, where he'll be a member of the class of '13. He apologizes profusely for setting the bar unintentionally high for his cousins. blog twitter
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