Customer Reviews

Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

At first, I couldn't get over how snobbish and bitchy Joel's words were. I had this resounding voice in the back of my head that said, "Oh, brother, another stereotypical gay writer who hopes to appease the straight people by making fun of our culture" -but I couldn't help loving him with ever page and finding a little of myself hidden within. His book is truly the perfect balance of perversion and purpose: damned him for sparking my interest in knitting because my scarf is coming out hideous, and I'm thinking of trying out at one of the local clubs, and I've already starting searching for the next Exodus convention!

I adore this book. It has something for everyone - gay, straight, striped, whatever. I laughed, I related, I didn't want it to end. An all-around fabulous read!

Rarely do I find myself taking the time to review anything (5 attempts at a blog and not one lasted more than a month!) but how could I not! While on a residency trip for grad school, I went to a bookstore to browse for diversion in the form of light reading or fashion magazines. How could it be possible for the cover not to completely draw you in! I read it on the plane ride from Virginia home to California. I laughed until I cried and then went online to order ten more copies to give away. Swish for everyone! I also recommend reading it out loud to someone you love, or like a lot, or just to complete strangers as a random act of kindness.

Is Swish funny? It's hilarious.

Is it about life as a gay man? Yup.

But that's really not the whole story. The heart of the book - for me - was about Joel's mother. His relationship with her, the way he tries to reconcile his love with the terrible things they experienced together (and that she said) broke my heart.

This is a very grown-up book. It's the kind of book where no one's really that great, much less perfect, but everyone receives a fair share of compassion from our gentle narrator.

Swish is an excellent book, well-written and moving. It is considerably darker than you might expect, given the title and the author's previous book--Derfner's life story includes a dying mother and struggles with mental illness. Nonetheless Swish is well-leavened with humor and packed with insight.

I read a review of "Swish" and it sounded intriguing, so I picked it up even though, as a heterosexual woman, I'm well aware that I'm not the target audience for the book. And you know what? I found myself identifying with Joel anyway. He's neurotic, an outsider -- and also manages to be completely hilarious and insightful in a way most of us can only dream about. Reading "Swish" is like spending a few hours in the company of a fascinating and funny person, and if you're straight, even if you have gay friends and/or relatives, you're likely to come away with a better understanding of what it means to be a gay man in 2008.

This is that rarest of things: an honest book.
And that makes it a beautiful one.

This is one of the funniest and most intelligent gay memoirs to hit the stores in recent years. That said, however, there's something disturbing about the author's criteria for judging the value and worth of the other people with whom he shares the planet: "Hot" and "sexy" seem to be the only two categories that count--and his relentless contempt for overweight people borders on the pathological. A worthwhile read as long as you're not sensitive to the feelings of others.