Letters to Montgomery Clift
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“Praying is not enough — better put it in writing!” Bong Bong Luwad is living with his selfish Auntie Yuna in L.A., far from his Philippine village, the Marcos regime, and his mother who helped him escape. Bong Bong spends his nights watching old movies on TV, while Auntie Yuna writes pleading letters to saints and dead relatives. One night on the late-late movie, Bong Bong finds his own saint: Montgomery Clift, playing a soldier who helps a lost boy and his mother. Can Monty do the same for him? He gets out a pencil and paper and thus begins a series of extraordinary events that carry him from boyhood to adolescence, through sexual awakening, madness, and finally back to a place where he can begin his life again. 'Letters to Montgomery Clift' is a novel of endurance and hope. It is a tale of growing up, coming out, and going home.“Noël Alumit knows about loss, and alienation, and sorrow. Fortunately for the readers of his bittersweet first novel, he knows even more about resilience and hope. 'Letters to Montgomery Clift' brings us an authentic and compelling new voice that shimmers with generosity while never shrinking from the rawness of truth.”: Aimee E. Liu, author of 'Cloud Mountain'. “Noël Alumit will break your heart and then put it back together again with his absorbing and heartfelt first novel. 'Letters to Montgomery Clift' is a poignant journal of discovery and desire,a wicked storm of a story with a surprisingly graceful clearing.”: Peter Gadol author of 'Light at Dusk'.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This occasionally radiant coming-of-age tale crams human rights violations, the cultural and emotional turmoil of immigrant life, self-mutilation, family ties, abortion, coming out and the ubiquitous search for self all into a brisk, sometimes jarring read. In the midst of the atrocities of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1970s, eight-year-old Bong Bong Luwad is smuggled to Los Angeles, where he stays with his abusive, alcoholic Auntie Yuna, who writes "letters to God and dead relatives." Each chapter begins with missives to the eponymous dead movie star who catches Bong's imagination, filling in for his missing parents and rousing his burgeoning sexuality. Bounced around the foster care system after Auntie Yuna goes to the liquor store and never returns, Bong ends up with a well-to-do foster family, the Filipino Arangans, who are picture-perfect on the outside, but harbor their own mysteries, disillusionments and shames, one of which drives Bong away from them. He finds a confidante in their rebellious daughter, Amada, and a range of opportunities provided by their wealth, but he connects with Amnesty International and holds on to the hope that his parents are still alive. The obsessive letters are a rather clumsy expository device and the ending is less than credible, but Alumit's debut is affecting enough to suggest that when he hits his stride, he will be a writer to reckon with.
