Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever (Hardcover)

by Joel Derfner (Author)
Key Phrases: New York, Wicked Witch of the West, Gina Grant (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Derfner (Gay Haiku) recounts his forays into indignity, knitting and unlikely friendships in this engaging if uneven memoir. Derfner's affectionate portraits of the men he met at a Christian homosexual conversion retreat and his account of his dueling desires—to accept them or shepherd them toward self-acceptance—provide welcome gravity in a book that flirts with more substantive issues of intimacy, identity and masculinity but never fully engages them. The book's conversational tone suffers from a heavy reliance on hyperbole, and the author's carefully cultivated campy persona feels tiresomely derivative and forced. And while Derfner's foibles—losing his aerial cheerleading position to more capable females, making only $5 in his first night as a go-do dancer—are amusing, his kiss-and-tell accounts of hookups and bad sex rarely rise above their own prurience. The most forceful ruminations arise gracefully from unlikely sources: memories of his musical theater education digress into a discussion encompassing concentration camp artwork, ancient Hebrew concepts of creation and the Columbia space shuttle explosion. Derfner's essays on his struggle to form meaningful relationships benefit more from his emotional intelligence than his wit. (May 13)
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Review
Praise for Swish:

"Joel Derfner writes what we all feel but aren't brave enough to say. SWISH is the best book about gay sexuality I've ever read."
- Elton John

“Reading Swish is like having a marathon phone call with your gay best friend—assuming your friend is hilarious, brilliant, and completely honest. Which he probably isn’t, so you should read this book.”
—Marc Acito, author of Attack of the Theater People


Praise for Gay Haiku:

“Hysterical.”
—Out

“Just the author’s foreword in this little pink book is the funniest three pages I’ve read in ages.”
—Advocate

“A world of hilarious juxtapositions, melancholy reflections, and stingingly smart observations.”
—In Los Angeles

“Go out and buy five copies; it will never be returned if you lend it to friends.”
—HX


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (May 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767924304
• ISBN-13: 978-0767924306
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #297,913 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cause to Rejoice, May 13, 2008

By	Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Derfner, Joel. "Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever", Broadway Books, 2008.

Cause to Rejoice

Amos Lassen

When I first read about Joel Derfner's "Swish", I knew it would rank high on my list of favorite books and I am happy to say that I was correct. My copy came today and Sophie (my Jack Russell) and I sat down, ready to enjoy every line. (I am pretty sure the dog thinks I lost it as I laughed from cover to cover). Here is a book that tells it like it is and I am afraid that if I do not start reading it again that I might suffer from "Oh my God, I just finished a good book syndrome" and that depression might follow.
"Swish" is not only funny; it is very intelligent as well as somewhat raunchy. Derfner is a good Jewish boy like myself and I saw so much of my own life in the book that I, at times, felt as if I was reading my own memoir and not his. The book is a collection of essays dealing with all aspects of gay life from casual dating and sex to camp to cheerleading to musical theater. Derfner takes a close look at gay life and does so with a satire that has the reader laughing out loud. The book is honest and well written and I may get cussed out for saying this but it does for the 2000's what Larry Kramer did for the 60's and 70's in "Faggots". It's a book about the way we live and the way we love.
Not many books hit me the way "Swish" does because not many people are willing to tell it as it is. I knew I was in for a fun ride when I read Derfner's forward. However as I read further I found a great deal of truth especially as the author explores gay identity. This is a book by a gay men about a gay man and written for gay men and everyone else. "Swish" is a book that you will want your straight friends to read so they can understand you better. But be careful--if you lend it to your gay friends, you may not get it back. I have another copy on the way, just in case.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hoop-hoop-hooray!, May 13, 2008

By	Johnathan D. Wilber - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This memoir is truly an occasion to be savored--complete with the after-good-book letdown and weeks-long depression. His bawdy, and extremely intelligent humor makes his essay collection downright delightful--so much so that I read the book with the jacket prominently displayed, just on top of my nose, while I rode the subway. And Nabokov and myself aside, I know no one with such a command for beautiful words that have unjustly fallen out of usage!

If the humor's not enough for you, Joel's book is bursting with profound insights that explore the vagaries of being a gay man today, the universal weirdness of relationships and dating, and the raw--and enlivening--terrain of being an artist. Joel is truly a literary soulmate, and SWISH is a book I will come back to and read for years to come.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Insightful and Courageous, June 28, 2008

By	Timothy Mulder (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

There are two basic types of reviews in this world, the;
'Oh my God, you should have seen/read the amazing characterization/acting/cinematography/special effects... you simply must go see/read this book/movie/play/production!' Yay!!!
Or... the;
'I have a rather large literary stick up my yahoo and am therefore qualified to relate all the technical achievements and defects of said book/movie/production... yadda, yadda, yadda.'
For myself...
In the WaHoo! Department... let me just say two things. I read the book cover to cover.... and I frequently had to hold a pillow over my face so that my out-of-control laughter would not wake anyone else in the house.
I am a gay man and I do live, to a certain degree, within the world that Joel Derfner describes. So I suppose that biases me a tad. But make no mistake, the humor is born, not from the triteness of the gay experience, but out of one man's incredibly resourceful coping mechanisms while living with multiple personality issues, like OCD, a pathological need to be accepted and fear of ever - under any circumstances - offending anyone... about anything. In other words... this is true courage in action.
Technically speaking... as a fellow author; all I could think after finishing each and every paragraph, was how I had to go back and rework my own writing. (ever damn word and sentence) My Derfner is a literary artisan who uses words with efficiency, precision and aplomb.
If all of that is a little too 'high brow' and you require a perspective a tad more mundane. Think of the character 'Jack' from TV's 'Will and Grace', only with a brain and something insightful to say.
The highest praise I can think of after reading this book; "I wish Joel Derfner was a personal friend of mine."
Go, Read... you won't be disappointed.