A Professional Lola

April 1, 2024
Stories that explore family and language through the filter of Filipino American experiences. In the title story of this multifaceted, deftly crafted collection, a family hires an actor to portray their deceased grandmother, or lola (a "strange trend [that] spread through the Filipino community"). The uncanny depiction is so convincing ("one-hundred-dollars-an-hour good") that it transfixes and unsettles the family, culminating in the actor-turned-ancestor asking a quiet question--one the narrator's actual lola used to ask--that alludes to the narrator's sexuality, a secret no one else knew about: "may boyfriend ka ba?" It's a moment of true enchantment, and this sense of unlikely magic courses through Tuazon's stories, which also weave in Tagalog words and phrases in a way that invites readers into the lives of their characters and grounds dialogue in conversational authenticity. But Tuazon's characters exhibit the range of regard for their heritage that might be expected among any diasporic population. In "Promise Me More," a woman tries to help her pack-rat mother escape stacks of ancient magazines and expired curios, when a conversation about terminology devolves into an argument, as the mother insists: "I haven't spoken that island jive in forty years." In "Frog," Tuazon cords together past and present, as the narrator evaluates a potential romantic interest after a video game-themed drinking game while simultaneously recounting early memories playing Super Nintendo as his lola knitted and watched along in admiration: "He's a cute! Make sure you level him up, anakong!" Brightly evocative, clever, and sincere, Tuazon's third work of fiction continues to chart a promising path forward.

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April 1, 2024

Southern California-based Filipino American writer Tuazon (The Cussing Cat Clock) brings to readers a collection of 13 short stories, 11 of which have been previously published in slightly different forms. The title work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021 and is an insightful introduction for readers not familiar with Filipino communities, which are often strongly family-oriented. All of the stories, spanning across the Filipino diaspora, focus on family and interpersonal relationships in various permutations. Evoking elements of surprise, bits of humor, and feelings of emotional depth (whether stemming from a coven of spell-casting women in "Blood Magic," the robbery of a Filipino bakery in "Second Panaderya Attack," or the memory of a 70-year-old grandfather's transformation from a young boy's Lolo to being his Lola in "Carabao"), these stories are thought-provoking and deeply readable. VERDICT A wonderful offering. Share this collection with those who enjoyed Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare or Anthony Veasna So's Afterparties.--Emily Pykare

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