Flipping

In this searing and frequently surprising novel, three Filipino males who have sex with males come to terms with their sexuality in different ways: one as a traditionally effeminate bakla' in a quest for a “real man,” one as an open gay man, and one as a nominally “straight” man. What is most shocking in this book is not the explicit sex (of which there is a lot!), but the representation of racialized desire, which is far more taboo a topic in contemporary America than sex (even homosex) is.

To those whose internalized thought police want to shut down Flipping early on, I would say, “Read on and withhold your verdict until you see what happens. Threre are several flips of expectations and several sexually active F[i]lip[io]s ahead.” What you read may not all be pretty and comforting, but what is most troubling is all-too real, however repressed discussion of it usually is. The totality of the book may still shock you, but I hazard to predict some surprises of structure and character growth and variety lie ahead. If you can suspend judgment about the first narrator’s political incorrectness and deal with explicit sex, this is a very funny and ultimately moving first novel. It is “shocking” in some good senses as well as in the sense of “troubling.”

—Stephen O. Murray