Jesse Monteagudo: This review was originally published in Gay Today (4/1/03). It is reprinted with permission from www.gaytoday.badpuppy.com online. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer who lives in South Florida. He may be reached at jessemonteagudo@aol.com online.
Noöl Alumit’s first novel is a literary tour de force that brings together issues as diverse as coming out gay, Asian-American immigration, missing parents, foster home care, the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines, and Montgomery Clift. When only eight years old, Bong Bong Luwad is smuggled out of the Philippines by his parents, democratic activists who soon disappear into the bowels of Marcos’s police state.
Sent to Los Angeles, Bong Bong is placed in the ungentle care of his Auntie Yuna, an alcoholic, abusive woman who writes letters to God and dead relatives. Taking a cue from his crazy aunt, Bong Bong begins to write letters to Montgomery Clift, a dead gay actor whose nurturing role in The Search gave young Bong Bong the hope that Clift would come to his rescue and help him find his parents. Each chapter in Letters to Montgomery Clift begins with a letter from Bong Bong to Clift, which sets the tone for the story to come.
It’s one thing to write letters to a dead movie star when you’re eight. It’s quite another to continue this correspondence when you’re an adult, and the fact that Bong Bong continues his missives to Monty indicates severe emotional problems on the part of the author. (The fact that Clift himself was a self-destructive alcoholic who never came to terms with his homosexuality makes him a highly unlikely patron saint.)
It doesn’t help that Bong Bong is bounced from foster home to foster home after his Auntie Yuna disappears on her way to the liquor store. Though Bong Bong (now Bob) is finally placed with the Arangans, an affluent Filipino-American family, he is not able to become part of that family, or any family.
Interestingly enough, being gay is not a problem with Bong Bong/Bob, even when he imbues his lovers with the persona of Monty Clift. Our hero’s affinity for Clift leads him to blotch page 168 of every books he sees, a time-consuming labor of love. Even worse, Bob is drawn to Clift-like acts of self destruction that land him in a mental hospital.
Much has been written about the atrocities of Ferdinand Marcos, one of several right-wing despots that the U.S. propped up as helpful allies in the Cold War. But there hasn’t been much written about the Marcos’s regime role in breaking up Filipino families and its effect on the surviving members. The disappearance of his parents was the defining and traumatic experience of Bong Bong’s life, more so than his homosexuality or his status as a racial minority in America.
Letters to Montgomery Clift is basically the story of one boy’s search for his parents, and as such it should appeal to everyone regardless of race, national origin or sexual orientation. The letters themselves are a clever device which, unfortunately, get tedious after a while. Though Alumit wants us to feel sympathy for his character, there always seems to be an emotional barrier between Bong Bong and the reader that keeps us from really caring about the guy.
First novels are often autobiographical, so it is dangerous to see any resemblances between Noöl Alumit and the disturbed Bong Bong. Before the publication of this book, Alumit – a brilliant Filipino-American author and actor – was best known as the star of his own one-man shows (The Rice Room: Scenes from a Bar; Master of the (Miss) Universe). Though somewhat deficient, Letters to Montgomery Clift is a good first novel and a worthy debut for a rising literary star. For Noöl Alumit, the best is yet to come.
During the last few months, Letters to Montgomery Clift has been honored with some of our community’s biggest literary awards. Insight Out Books, the GLBT book club, gave it its Violet Quill Award, an award ISO presents “to a new author whose debut work of fiction is an outstanding LGBT read.”
Even more impressive, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Task Force of the American Library Association gave its Stonewall (GLBT) Book Award in Literature to this book. Finally Noöl Alumit’s first novel is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in the category of Gay Men’s Fiction. Way to go.
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