Peripathetic: Notes on (un)belonging

by Cher Tan

ʻThere was something so captivating about always being on the edge, on that shaky precipice of promise — something new and something cool was just lurking around the corner and we’d arrive at it if we kick around long enough.ʼPeripathetic is about shit jobs. About being who you are and who you aren’t online. About knowing a language four times. About living on the interstices. About thievery. About wanting. About the hyperreal. About weirdness.Cher Tan’s essays are as non-linear as her life, as she travels across borders that are simultaneously tightening and blurring. In luminous and inventive prose, they look beyond the performance of everyday life, seeking answers that continually elude.Paying homage to the many outsider artists, punks, drop-outs and rogue philosophers who came before, this book is about the resistance of orthodoxies — even when it feels impossible.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Queer

236 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2024

About the author

Cher Tan is an essayist and critic in Naarm/Melbourne, via Kaurna Yerta / Adelaide and Singapore. Her work has appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, Runway Journal, Overland, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings and Gusher magazine, among others. She is the reviews editor at Meanjin and an editor at Liminal.

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** LONGLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2025 ***

A collection of nine essays, with the first quarter having an undertone of anger. And discontent. While looking for others to connect with. As Cher Tan herself describes her writing as "thought vomit" who am I to argue?

”Quit the vague shit.”

The book’s title Peripathetic is a clever play on words as “peripatetic” undoubtedly describes her nomadic like existence, moving from country to country, city to city, one lowly paid job to another.

The essay title By Signalling Nothing I Remain Opaque was full of redacted lines. There were so many blocked out sentences it looked like a letter that had gone through Checkpoint Charlie during the cold war. Filled with obscure graphs, it was just odd.

There was mention of underground movements and music which I’ve never heard of and feel zero connection to. It made me think of how many disparate lifestyles co-exist on this small planet of ours. And that regardless of how radical or conservative our paths may be, most people still long for a connection with others. To find their tribe so to speak.

”And as the past envelopes the present, I feel the future slipping from my grip.”

The Lifestyle Church is one of the longer essays and really stood out. It delved further into people and society. Our online selves versus our real selves. Which is the truer version? Counter cultures. How people think they’re changing the world, but society and civilisation continues on regardless, such as it is.

”I was so desperate from freedom I wouldn’t have known it if freedom hit me over the head with its axe.”

As the collection progressed, so did my enjoyment of the essays. They became less angry-young-punk and talked with depth and self-deprecating humour of her migrant experience in Australia. Shit Jobs is hands down my favourite which opens your eyes to the fact that there is very much a working poor class in Oz that isn’t really talked about. She was very upfront and honest about what it's like doing casual work, with lack of financial security and stability.

Part memoir and part social commentary, this is an interesting collection which while you may not understand everything she’s talking about (which I definitely didn't), you’ll definitely appreciate the writing.

”I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work .”

That pretty much describes life for so many of us right? Adulting isn’t always fun.

[ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

tan is such a luminary and epitomises using an authorial platform for good. so many insights into subculture and society, at times theory-heavy but well-explained

[jamesdoesread · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at a bookstore in Melbourne because the cover caught my eye whilst on display. The content sounded interesting to me too but I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect. I absolutely adored this read. Tan’s writing is playful and fun, at times eccentric (in the best way), and always thought-provoking. It’s simultaneously dense and so easy to read. Blending the personal with theory in a way that I found very compelling. I would name my favourites of the essays but I loved so many of them I think it would defeat the point. If books were scored by the amount of words I don’t know, this would place pretty high on the list (but maybe I’m just dumb).

[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the subject matter and wit of these essays. Stellar wordplay, but often elliptically written, circling the point, unclear. Sometimes I enjoyed this being left in the wake, sometimes I found it frustrating.

[Jimmylanyard · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are essays here that I hope to revisit again and again. The piratebay and shit jobs essays in particular resonated so hard with me.

[Wiebke (1book1review) · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFed after two essays. This is not for me. Can't say if I am too stupid or just too old to get it, but it mostly felt like pseudo intellectual word vomit to me.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It was a Marxian metabolic rift, except the natural environment wasn’t the thing that was being alienated. We were using the language of capital to refute its logics. By then it’s become entrenched, you’re in too deep, it’s too late to step off the train now, which is exactly like how you got into it in the first place. The spin-cycle of lifestyle: what saves you entraps you further; the land of no return – your mind has already been moulded by its structures and affects, which makes reintegrating into so-called ‘regular’ society comparatively even more onerous – ‘a very poor preparation punk rock had been for later life’.* You’ve already spent so much time within it. The contrast becomes jarring: to extricate yourself and not experience its lingering effects, how it used to shape the entirety of your world, your understanding of reality."
I loved Peripathetic all of the way through, but I loved the early essays in a different way to the later ones. Tan has that capacity to words together in ways that make my spine tingle, or make me simply smile with the joy of it. This is on show in many of the earlier essays, which felt as I read them as if Tan edged close to somethingly powerfully earnest, but flips into writing playfully, prioritising the joyfulness of words coming together and enabling an easier read. Lingua Franca is a joy of code switching, showing off with rapid language transitions that still somehow fit perfectly together, pointing at significant things, combined with a cleverness of ideas and thinking that draws you in, but with some kind of emotional distance.
From "The Lifestyle Church" for me, the tone seemed to shift. Tan interrogates hard, and deploys her skill with words towards precision. It is still wonderfully put together, but there is less play and more focus on the torrent of things Tan has to say about her life, and the understanding she has drawn out of it. This was, for me, less shivery but also frankly harder to put down. I sneak read on my phone under the table, in the passenger seat. The ideas filled my head. I want to say there is more certain tone, but that would belie the nuance and doubt that Tan prizes. Rather, I would say, that the tone no longer suggests you can take or leave what she has to say, and it is the better for it.
Many of the essays revolve around Tan's experiences and processing of her time in the Punk scene, primarily in Singapore, and the experiences of casual work. I found her writing about the evolution of punk and online piracy compelling, as I also try to process how the early sense that tech would disrupt our order has morphed into something very different. And in strange ways, I found her constant interrogation of what to keep and what to move on from comforting. Maybe continuing to question is one of the best things we can do, especially if you can do it in such clear and enjoyable prose.
I'm not sure this review makes any sense, and I am a little tempted to delete it entirely, but I'm tired and don't have energy to start again. So let's just settle with: I liked this a lot.

[ValTheBookEater]

favourite essays were “Is this real?”, “Shit Jobs” and “Unskillful Life”

[James Whitmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cher Tan is an archivist, a historian, a scribe of this pointy end of the convergence of neoliberalism and the internet in the first decades of the 21st Century. These erudite "notes", subtitled "on (un)belonging", blend theory and memoir to document the experience of finding community online only to have it become strange and exploitative, as the tools that once seemed to promise liberation are co-opted to maintain the status quo, or better still, turbocharge it. Read more on my blog.

[Tiara Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really have no idea what stars to give this book, it's not something I normally would read, there was some very though provoking concepts but the chaotic layout of the book had been often distracted and found it hard to push through and engage with the content. Despite this overall I did enjoy the content.

[anusha_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

PERIPATHETIC, NOTES ON (UN)BELONGING TAN, LONGLISTED FOR STELLA PRIZE 2025

I was immensely thrilled when I was invited to read and review some of the longlisted titles by @thestellaprize. Here’s my first book review from the list!

Peripathetic is a nonfiction collection of nine essays, narrated in a nonlinear manner, that reads much like a memoir. Fragmented, fast-moving, and sharply critical of contemporary culture, the book defies conventional storytelling. Cher Tan masterfully captures fleeting moments and fluid ideas, refusing to conform to traditional writing structures. The essays centre on her personal experiences with identity, migration, and digital culture.

Cher Tan, an essayist, critic, and editor at Liminal magazine, was born and raised in Singapore and now resides in Melbourne. Peripathetic is her debut book. The title itself appears to be a deliberate neologism—possibly a fusion of PERIPATETIC (meaning constantly traveling) and PATHETIC, hinting at a restless intellectual journey marked by emotional and existential struggles.

Tan’s essays delve into the precarious nature of work, particularly the experiences of migrant workers. She critiques “shit jobs”—unstable, low-paying, and undervalued forms of labour that exploit workers. As an aspiring writer, she also reflects on the financial instability inherent in pursuing an intellectual career.

Witty yet complex, the book resonates with restlessness and defiance. Movement—both literal and metaphorical—is a recurring theme, explored through her migration, transient jobs, and personal struggles. She highlights issues of underpayment, job insecurity, and the undervaluation of labour.

Tan also examines internet trends, cancel culture, and digital media while addressing contemporary societal concerns. Her critique of capitalism is laced with sharp humour, and the book is filled with rhetorical questions that engage readers, expose contradictions, and mock uncertainties. At its core, Peripathetic explores the theme of (un)belonging.

If you enjoy short but deeply thought-provoking books, Peripathetic is a compelling read. A bold and sharp debut.

[Danial Yazdani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Official published review incoming.

[Liam McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

great take on ‘authenticity’

also taking “find the caffeinated sweet spot between being alert and alarmed; channel your fear; say what you think is true” as my daily professional mantra.

[afoty boy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tan’s ability to draw on “blank”, sprinkle in some surprising “blank” and ground her writings in “blanks” makes for vital reading.

Cher Tan showcases the worst kind of quasi academic creative non-fiction writing that the sociology section has to offer. Namedropping post-modernist philosophers purely to bolster her arguments/experiences really speaks to Tan’s desperation to ingratiate herself with the dead CCRU/K-punk circle. It’s evident that Tan has no background in academia, not just because she says as much. Couching specious conclusions and links from vague Debord and Deleuze-Guattari quotes in casual internet lingo should get your typing fingers revoked. As a broke Singaporean expat slumming through Australia’s crappy workforce, packaging her lack of tertiary education as a marker of her victimhood, she paints herself as like this vagrant genius figure. Not that this is to suggest that only educated students reserve the right to talk philosophy, but when Tan clearly has little command of a very specific and trendy school of thought it speaks to how boldly she’s willing to talk about subjects she hasn’t really researched to legitimise her status as a thinker.

The Lifestyle Church stinks of half-remembered discussions from Capitalist Realism, and as a result it achieves some clever insight. Investigating how sub-cultures covertly work under the logic of capital, Tan runs into the weedy and uncomfortable idea that the anti-cap punk and alt scenes gave her the entrepreneurial skills required to navigate corporate worlds. In Tan’s view, all subcultures contain this capitalist nexus, achieve success outside of mainstream corporate culture by hustling; publishing “zines” (god, I'd be so happy to not be forced into mentally pronouncing “zeen” ever again), promoting and advertising underground bands, this is the perfect experience required for a sales team member at Universal. Hey, recruiting demonstrators for the pro-palestine rally you’re organising is giving you the skillset small businesses value in rostering crew and managing payroll. Although, Mark Fisher might counter this by claiming this is capitalist realism through and through. Re-entrenching the idea that there is no alternative. Isn't this exactly the rhetoric Fisher wants to warn us of?

Shit Jobs is a standout piece of narcissistic logorrhea – a non-linear account of every cash in hand gig and PAYG job Tan ever worked in excruciating detail. Oh god the injustice, the inhumanity of me being some kind of innumerable cog in some machine. It indulges in the kind of adolescent whining that would make this text incredibly popular for first year undergrads. Ironically enough, later on in the book, now being an established “name” (in what circles? I'd love to avoid them) Tan critiques the requirements ‘speaking gigs’ place on authors/creatives, ie. Creating a persona to sell on stage. Think Steve Jobs and that NVIDIA CEO who always wears those hot leather trench coats. Yes, they are mouthpieces for the product they are selling, but you are also buying their character, their curated persona and look.

I assume if you paid to be in attendance of a speech, (and I'll use a totally random example here) you’re paying to be shocked and amused at Milo Yiannopolis’ offensive language and gestures. The amusement of seeing a camp, clearly gay, homophobe in the middle of a coke binge, is the product you’re buying as much as the satisfaction of having your fascist views confirmed in a stinky echo chamber. Another neo-liberal hijacking of creative spaces. Then what importance does Shit Jobs serve besides curating a very specific and marketable image for your readers? Can you ever talk about yourself in the proximity of a product or a text without commodifying yourself? We are going down a neurotic spiral where nothing exists outside of the context of capital. However, I suppose that is part and parcel with anything ‘creatively’ inclined that wants to scrutinise the authenticity of authenticity. Tan is building glass houses all over the shop. Kinda glad I slogged thru to the end and the Gabber Modus Operandi shout out was awesome.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb of Peripathetic by Cher Tan refers to essays that are ‘non-linear.’ That’s a great descriptor. I found the essays started slowly, their subject matter slightly obscure but heavily geared towards the internet and being ‘online.’ I suspect I may be a similar age to the author, or at least I say so as I also recall the era of internet culture described. The essays gather pace though, and although non-linear develop more coherent narrative thread, and once complete their whole is much better than their parts alone. The Cher I meet in the essays is intensely interesting, highly intuitive about the culture of her past - Singapore - and the Australia she migrates to. I enjoyed learning more about life in Singapore, although the references are usually only cursory. Her essays about shit jobs, about precarity and establishing herself in Australia were highly interesting. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Her voice is very much of the zeitgeist - where we all live in a late capitalist system that consumes our every day reality and commodifies almost everything in our daily lives. I’m grateful to Cher for giving me much to think about, and giving me some tools to understand our current reality.

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10
"It’s a question for the times: art flourishes under capitalism, yet the same art dies. If, in this society, love is private, reproductive and unpaid (art is a labour of love), and work is public, productive and paid (art can never be quantified), I wonder where that leaves art–work. Surely there are more options than just burnout or poverty."

Part memoir, part postmodernist cultural theory, part doom scrolling, part chair stacking, part Singapore internet cafe, part Fitzroy coffee bar. All punk, all scathing critique of capital and hegemony (and, sometimes, self).

Tan is widely read, witty, caustic, sharp. This essay collection is a photomosaic of insights and experiences from the sidelines – literally, in one case – that overlap inelegantly to pose much bigger questions about art, power and resistance.

As someone who gave up on artistic dreams for financial stability, I was inspired to listen to Leftöver Crack on my walk through the park to my institutional nine-to-five. Play on.

Favourites: Is This Real?, Shit Jobs, Influenza

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A punchy collection of very smart essays, part memoir, part social commentary.

A rumination on writing, as an occupational and something to be paid for. On the need for social media presence to make it. Of ethics, movement and migration, personal history. The sass and thrill of pirated art, through the history of access via online technology, before it all got shut down.

The essay about shit jobs Cher has had, the precariousness of paid casual employment as a young person, the trials and exploitation, the struggle to keep your head just above water. So relatable, and horrifying. A not too distant memory for many of us, surely.

So many profound and intellectual thoughts. Sometimes too clever for me, this collection was engaging and leaves much to ponder.

[milliebrewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

there aren't many things that bring me more joy than good australian writing. this essay collection intelligently and often humorously explores the influence of capitalism, imperialism and social media on the immigrant experience, the punk/alternative underground, language, the workplace, and our self identification. some essays in this, i think, failed to sufficiently address their thesis, but only because these topics were so complex and nuanced that any attempt would probably fail. there were lots of references to other writers and theorists which i liked most of the time, but occasionally i found myself wishing that we could hear more of tan's perspective outside the context of these other people's ideas.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work and I went to work and I finished work.

Some really interesting thoughts here from Cher Tan, presented in a collection of stream-of-consciousness, experimental and well-researched essays. Some I liked more than others, some I just thought of as maybe a bit too raw for my taste. I liked 'This Unskilled Life' and 'Is This Real?'. Musings on work and culture, and the machine that is capitalism.

[Ebony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually gravitate towards essays, but seeing this at the top of my favourite bookstore's "best books of 2024" made me so curious I had to purchase it.

Cher's writing is an absolute delight, and easy to resonate with. I must have marked a million passages in this as some of my favourite writing of 2024, and this has given me so much to think about. I can't wait to read what Cher writes next!

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

The first essay was frantic which I understood more once I read the essay about the authors experience in the punk scene. I enjoyed some essays more than others, but found a lot of the sentences too verbose and complicated and often that meant the impact of the point was diluted. There were some truly funny and snappy lines and the authors wit really shone through in those. Some really interesting insights into the migrant experience in Australia as well as early career writers.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an adventure for me as I’ve never read an essay collection before.

Covering topics including social media, identity, capitalism, punk and more, this was a wide ranging exploration of ideas from Cher, a Singapore-born Australian author. At times it felt stream of consciousness to me with so many ideas coming think and fast. This is well worth a thoughtful, meditative read.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed these essays. They covered lots of things, identity, cultural background, class, finding identity through punk, growing up. They were very intelligent so I had to take my time, but really thoughtful, interesting and funny perspectives on identity/outsider status/ capitalism/modern times etc.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of essays that will stay with me; I know I will be returning to them again and again. I particularly loved the experimentation with form and the depth of theory and thought Tan weaved into the essays.

[Madeleine Laing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a cool exciting new voice with so much to say - some of the essays got a little repetitive, and (probably on-purpose) obtuse, but mostly I was enthralled.

[orion · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5. Relatable acidic and insightful. I am literally this book

[Bel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highlights:

- Speed Tests
- The Lifestyle Church
- Shit Jobs

[Char · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really fantastic essays!! However, some of them are a bit confusing with their wording and use quotes that at times don't seem to have much to the point being made.

[DD · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you name drop Extortion in a book, you automatically will get 5 stars from me.

With my own powerviolence/black metal/punk background, I felt seen.

[Farrells Bookshop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written essay and reflections.

Read by Suzie