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A Review of Eric C. Wat’s SWIM (Permanent Press, 2019).
A Review of Eric C. Wat’s SWIM (Permanent Press, 2019).
By Stephen Hong Sohn
Eric C. Wat has graced us with his debut novel SWIM (Permanent Press, 2019). Wat is probably more known to those of us in academia for his pioneering work The Making of a Gay Asian Community: An Oral History of Pre-AIDS Los Angeles (Pacific Formations: Global Relations in Asian and Pacific Perspectives). To this day, this book remains one of the few (perhaps only?) oral histories of the queer Asian American community. His novel likewise breaks new ground in what might be a kind of post-queer work. I use that phrase to attend to the ways in which the novel involves an Asian American protagonist (Carson) who just happens to be queer. Though sexuality and queer issues are major themes, coming out of the closet is not really the central concern nor do any of the protagonist’s family members really care about the fact that the protagonist identifies as queer. In fact, there’s a telling scene in which Carson and his Aunt are in a bakery and the bakery store owner sort of chides Carson for being single. The Aunt tells the bakery owner to “mind her own business,” but she retorts with the mention that she’s even making cakes now for gay weddings! Wat’s novel is one of the first that show changes not only in the general attitudes toward queer men but specifically toward queer Asian American men from within Asian American communities. In this sense, it’s perhaps the most progressive novel I’ve seen ever published from this particular perspective. It’s part of a growing set of novels (such as Rakesh Satyal’s No One Can Pronounce My Name and Brian Leung’s Lost Men) that are pushing the boundaries for queer Asian American representations. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s let B&N do some set up for us:
“Carson Chow is a high functioning addict. For years, he's been able to meet the increasing demands from his aging immigrant parents, while hiding his crystal meth use every other weekend. One Friday night, as he's passed out from a drug binge, he misses thirty-eight phone calls from his father, detailing first the collapse and eventually the death of his mother. Carson has always been close to his mother; he was the only person she confided in when his father had a one-night affair with her younger sister twenty years ago. For the following two weeks, he throws himself into the preparation of his mother's funeral, juggling between temptations and obligations. Sometimes slipping into relapse, his efforts are thwarted by a stoic father who is impractical and unable to take care of himself, a grandmother suffering dementia, a sister with a failing marriage, and a young niece with unknown trauma that can be triggered by the sound of running water. He tries to find support from his ex, Jeremy. Now clean and sober, Jeremy rebuffs him. As Carson assumes his mother's caregiving role, her secret resurfaces and now haunts him alone. Will this tragedy plunge him deeper into his abuse or finally rouse him from his addiction stupor?”
This description does a great job of setting-up the various relational tribulations Carson and his family face. Once Carson’s mother dies, a whole host of new conundrums emerge, the most prominent of which is Carson’s drug use. Carson’s addictions come to a head precisely because of all the stress generated out of his mother’s death. Carson is so used to being the caretaker of his family that he begins to realize he must take care of himself as well. The novel’s strength is in these complicated family dynamics and how they unfold in a very textured construction of Los Angeles. There is a cultural geographer’s sensibility of the cityscape here, where scenes always unfold with a specificity of texture that always enhance the various dramas unfolding. The title, which might be better stylized as S.W.I.M., stands for “someone who isn’t me,” a phrase which calls attention to Carson’s inability at first to face the demons that germinate out of his drug use. In this sense, this novel is as much about coming into one’s identity as a mature and responsible adult as it is about the struggles of one Asian American family. Wat’s prose only grows stronger as the novel brings various threads together. For me, the narrative took a little bit longer to settle precisely because I found the character to be at first a little bit hard to like. I always remind students that we can’t always embrace characters, precisely because they’re meant to be three dimensional, so many harbor flaws that we wouldn’t want to admit that we ourselves might too possess. Fortunately, Wat’s patient and allows Carson’s personality and motivations to emerge with some grace, which enables the narrative only to grow richer by the conclusion. I imagine Wat’s trailblazing novel will be one that can be adopted on classes on Asian American issues and queer studies!
Buy the Book Here:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/swim-eric-c-wat/1129846378
Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Nicholas Clark
Web Posting: Xiomara Forbez
If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don't hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at sohnucr@gmail.com
Nicholas Clark, PhD Student in English, at nclar004@ucr.edu
