![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiomara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
asianamlitfansA Review of Grace Talusan’s The Body Papers (Restless Books, 2019).
By Stephen Hong Sohn
Wow, this memoir/essay collection, Grace Talusan’s debut The Body Papers (Restless Books, 2019), is yet another one to add to what has been an extraordinary year in this genre. We’ll let B&N give us some context as per usual:
“Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal status in the country has always hung by a thread—for a time, they were ‘illegal.’ Family, she’s told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family’s ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself. Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating and documenting such abuse and trauma, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.”
This description does QUITE a bit of work for me here, so I don’t have to do much recounting of the memoir. What it doesn’t articulate is that the structure of the work is much like an essay collection in that the memoir doesn’t necessarily move in one direction. Each chapter is often topical. The memoir opens with a number of essays that deal with Talusan’s complicated relationship with her Filipino/a identity, the fact that she maintains an American privilege while in the Philippines, even as she so strongly identifies with her ethnic heritage. Her experiences in the Philippines are instructive: she inhabits the space in a different way. For instance, she finds it terrifying to cross streets, as so many drivers seem particularly aggressive. As the memoir moves forward, it does tackle the grave topic of sexual abuse. The weight and heft of the work changes dramatically at this point, precisely because Talusan is moving across many years of trauma. This process of working through is obviously painful but enables Talusan a chance to bring light to the complex dynamics of the Filipino/a American family. Eventually, it is evident that Talusan’s parents understand how important it is to support her, even if it means another kind of rupture in relation to the larger extended family. For Talusan, the site of the body is the site not only of identity, but of conflict, trauma, and ultimately reconstitution. I appreciated the thoughtful, incisive tonality throughout, and the work will no doubt receive attention through course adoptions and scholarly analysis.
Buy the Book Here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-body-papers-grace-talusan/1128996904
Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: 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
Xiomara Forbez, PhD Candidate in Critical Dance Studies, at xforb001@ucr.edu
By Stephen Hong Sohn
Wow, this memoir/essay collection, Grace Talusan’s debut The Body Papers (Restless Books, 2019), is yet another one to add to what has been an extraordinary year in this genre. We’ll let B&N give us some context as per usual:
“Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal status in the country has always hung by a thread—for a time, they were ‘illegal.’ Family, she’s told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family’s ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself. Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating and documenting such abuse and trauma, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.”
This description does QUITE a bit of work for me here, so I don’t have to do much recounting of the memoir. What it doesn’t articulate is that the structure of the work is much like an essay collection in that the memoir doesn’t necessarily move in one direction. Each chapter is often topical. The memoir opens with a number of essays that deal with Talusan’s complicated relationship with her Filipino/a identity, the fact that she maintains an American privilege while in the Philippines, even as she so strongly identifies with her ethnic heritage. Her experiences in the Philippines are instructive: she inhabits the space in a different way. For instance, she finds it terrifying to cross streets, as so many drivers seem particularly aggressive. As the memoir moves forward, it does tackle the grave topic of sexual abuse. The weight and heft of the work changes dramatically at this point, precisely because Talusan is moving across many years of trauma. This process of working through is obviously painful but enables Talusan a chance to bring light to the complex dynamics of the Filipino/a American family. Eventually, it is evident that Talusan’s parents understand how important it is to support her, even if it means another kind of rupture in relation to the larger extended family. For Talusan, the site of the body is the site not only of identity, but of conflict, trauma, and ultimately reconstitution. I appreciated the thoughtful, incisive tonality throughout, and the work will no doubt receive attention through course adoptions and scholarly analysis.
Buy the Book Here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-body-papers-grace-talusan/1128996904
Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: 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
Xiomara Forbez, PhD Candidate in Critical Dance Studies, at xforb001@ucr.edu
