Take My Name But Say It Slow: Essays

Synopsis

A luminous memoir-in-essays exploring place, identity, and what it means to grow up queer and Asian in the American South. Thomas Dai has never gone by his Chinese name, Nuocheng, fashioned from the Knoxville (Chinese: Nuokeshiweier) of his childhood and the Chengdu his mother called home. Seen another way, Nuocheng also contains the cheng of Chenggong: success. In one breath, his name speaks of a hometown, a geography, a half-baked promise to succeed. For Dai, every name is like a map, and every map can define identity. In Take My Name but Say It Slow, Dai writes of a river that runs only in the mind and a queer map housed on the internet; of love carved on the rocks of Taipei and Arizona; of pounding the racetrack in Wenzhou, watching his grandfather fade from the world. He recounts a relationship that would literally go the distance from the American Southwest to China and back again, and a road trip chasing the memory of Nabokov, the writer and lepidopterist. As he reflects on the paths his parents took to build a life in America, he also asks what it means to “return” to a place he never felt he could claim as his own. Incisive and gorgeously written, Take My Name but Say It Slow offers a fresh perspective on placelessness, yearning, and belonging, and introduces a sparkling new literary talent.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

288 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781324073635

Related ISBNs:

9781324066378, 9781324066378

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company

Date of Addition:

01/21/25

Copyrighted By:

Thomas Dai

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Literature and Fiction, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.