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, Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Gay, Asian American, Queer

288 pages, Hardcover

Published January 21, 2025

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book was a huge disappointment to me and actually offensive. In this essay collection, Thomas Dai writes about growing up queer and Asian in the Southern United States. The first thing that I was hugely turned off by was Dai’s proximity to and uncritical glorification of whiteness and white men. He references making jokes about wanting a white daddy, names how racialized comments about being “smooth” stimulated him, and articulates how he historically has had a preference for dating cis gay white men. Instead of critically self-reflecting on these patterns, he writes around them, sharing these sentiments glorifying whiteness without directly addressing this internalized white supremacy. Honestly, it reminded me of the (embarrassing) number of Asian American writers I’ve seen who will write about their white partners in a weirdly self-flagellating way that indicates their guilt without actually practicing self-growth, self-accountability, or acting differently.

And then I was turned off by Dai’s general myopic attitude about being Asian American and Asian American identity overall. I’m trying to be at least a little understanding because I myself didn’t grow up in the South so I can’t speak to that experience. However, the way he writes about Asian American identity just feels sad and assumes that Asian Americanness is some traumatic thing, without acknowledging Asian Americans’ histories of resistance against white supremacy and being labeled as foreign. Furthermore, at one point, Dai actually somewhat sympathizes with a white man who pretended to be Asian by adopting an Asian name to get his writing published… I was honestly just like, I cannot condone that behavior.

I’m giving this two stars instead of one star because I want to respect that Dai took the effort to write a book and he could be a very nice person for all I know. I just wish the contents of this essay collection weren’t so grounded in whiteness. He cites white authors a lot when I would have preferred to see these topics in conversation with authors of color, especially non-Asian authors of color from the South (of which there are plenty) if he felt that his selection of Asian or Chinese authors was limited. Anyway, I would recommend skipping this one.

[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.

[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.

[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