Nimrods
a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
In Nimrods, Kawika Guillermo chronicles the agonizing absurdities of being a newly minted professor (and overtired father) hired to teach in a Social Justice Institute while haunted by the inner ghosts of patriarchy, racial pessimism, and imperial arrogance. Charged with the “personal is political” mandate of feminist critique, Guillermo honestly and powerfully recounts his wayward path, from being raised by two preachers’ kids in a chaotic mixed-race family to his uncle’s death from HIV-related illness, which helped prompt his parents’ divorce and his mother’s move to Las Vegas, to his many attempts to flee from American gender, racial, and religious norms by immigrating to South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Canada. Through an often crass, cringey, and raw hybrid prose-poetic style, Guillermo reflects on anger, alcoholism, and suicidal ideation—traits that do not simply vanish after one is cast into the treacherous role of fatherhood or the dreaded role of professor. Guillermo’s shameless mixtures of autotheory, queer punk poetry, musical ekphrasis, haibun, academic (mis)quotations, and bad dad jokes present a bold new take on the autobiography: the fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this raw mix of poetry and prose, Guillermo (All Flowers Bloom) chronicles his early life and experiences in academia as a bisexual, mixed-race man. The prevailing tone is dark: Guillermo discusses enduring casual racism from his own family ("It's the white cousin asking you at your own grandmother's funeral how you learned to speak English"), navigating his father's alcoholism and suicidal depression ("binge; clock in; binge; clock out; binge; wife leaves; binge; she's probably out with some guy; binge"), and facing sometimes violent pushback from strangers and confidants about his sexuality. He presents these musings in an uncompromising, confrontational style, with handwritten chapter titles and crude collage art that can give the proceedings the feel of a zine or a chapbook. But between the broken lines and flashes of adolescent humor is an affecting, unmistakable narrative: one in which Guillermo catalogs his difficulties, considers their effects ("Dear counselors and therapeutics /In answer to your question, "Are you still having suicidal thoughts?" /Noooo.....? Heh... why... of course... not... /Not really, but I've been tugging on its roots"), and learns to find hope anyway. Though not for the faint of heart, this chaotic, fascinating self-portrait lingers.
