Take My Name But Say It Slow: Essays

by Thomas Dai

A luminous memoir-in-essays exploring place, identity, and what it means to grow up queer and Asian in the American South.


For Thomas Dai, names are maps—maps that have the power to define our identities. 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 Chengdu 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 lepidopterist. And he reflects on the paths his parents took to build a life in America, and what it means to “return” to a place he never felt was his own.


Incisive and gorgeously written, Take My Name but Say It Slow offers a fresh perspective on motion, placelessness, yearning, and belonging, and introduces a sparkling new literary talent.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Queer

288 pages, Hardcover

Published January 21, 2025

Reviews

[Novi · Rating 4 out of 5]

read bc on one of my fav author's (sab imbler) best reads of 2024 list.

in these essays, thomas dai reveals incredibly beautiful connections between cartography, biography, and intimacy in relation to his queer, Chinese, Southern identity. rarely has a book ever made me feel a sense of longing towards FL and complicated childhood of growing up there. dai's essays really asked me to consider who I am, who i want to become, and the biases i hold towards myself. also, man i just want to talk to this guy. he is wicked smart and would love to connect with someone who holds so many of the same identities as me, bug-lover most importantly haha.

side note: i saw that his next book is going to be about insects and i can't wait.

fav essays:
-Running Days
- Love on the Rocks ***(my favorite)
- What the River Gave Me
- Southings

[Debs · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

I struggled with this one, but it was due more to my obliterated attention span than anything author did or did not do. Location and the way it affects and influences identity, and the importance we place on it is a topic that’s of great interest to me, and I think this collection examines it in a variety of engaging ways.

[Kathy Chow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally spectacular. It is seriously so so good—tender, funny, and stunningly smart. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this, and I am so grateful that I live in a world in which this book exists.

[Alejandra Wagnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

this dude is gonna be my professor!!!!! WOOHOO!!!

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Local author. My favorites here: The Figure a Trip Makes: The Ideogram, Love on the Rocks, Driving Days. Southings is such a good way to think about once having been from the South.
3.5