Brief Histories

by Don Jaucian

Is queer happiness possible?

Brief Histories explores this question through 16 sketches hinged on pop cultural detritus from songhits to songbirds, early obsessions such as Polly Pockets, the longstanding influence of media representation, and the unrealized dream of safe spaces and security for the LGBTQIA+ community. At once humorous and heartbreaking, Brief Histories is a tour of the joys, hardships, and possibilities of growing up a gay boy in the Philippines.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

157 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2022

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

More than just his brief histories, Don Jaucian displayed himself in his debut book, in all his vulnerabilities and insecurities, strengths and charms. These essays resonate deeply and widely amongst the other gay kids-turned-adults who grew up (and remains) oppressed in homophobic Philippines, but still personal in a way only Jaucian can write it.

While the opening part was shaky—it should be told, however, that the essay about BL shows is inspired—Jaucian grew more assured and developed a much more stable and compelling style across the subsequent essays, leading up to a well-written closer about houses and safe spaces among the queer people. In it, he wrote “Many of our benchmarks in life, in order to feel mature and successful, are patterned after straight people's culture, such as marriage and having kids. But what is a gay man to do when even civil unions are refused by the state? How can I buy a house when I can't even leave it to my partner when I die?” This sharp criticism of the heteronormative society, with the unapologetic display of gayness and love of nostalgia became the book's main and easily recognizable attributes. It is surprising and refreshing to read such a strong and assertive voice, a special side to the soft-spoken Jaucian who launched the collection in Escolta.

I believe that the best essays, especially those which are written in the spirit of a memoir like this one, are the most intimate ones—not necessarily those that divulge a long-held secret, but something that would connect the writer, their text, to the reader. In that regard, Jaucian's meditation about growing older in the middle of the Cambodian half-marathon he joined has easily became my favorite in this one.

Reading this reminds me of Chee in How to Write... wherein he wrote: “Something new is made from my memories and yours as you read this. It is not my memory, not yours, and it is born and walks the bridges and roads of your mind, as long as it can. After it has left mine.” Through these more than brief histories which Jaucian generously shared to the readers, something new is definitely made.

[Ti · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up! favorites: carrie bradshaw lied to me (and other delusions), nothing matters when we're dancing, and someday i'll learn to love my body.

this book is a good starting point to understanding queer coming-of-age in the philippines, but i do wish some essays were clearer in their times of telling (i couldn't tell at which point in their life the author was writing from, and therefore found it challenging to build external context around some stories). i also wish the essays were longer; the author clearly has so much lived experience to draw from here, and therefore so much to explore. there was a lot of narration but not a lot of introspecting on those experiences.

love the casual writing style and insertions of research and pop culture. the frequency of em dashes and parentheses became very distracting for me midway through the collection though. still, really enjoyed reading essays that scream filipino culture; that contain so many people, events, and mores that i could resonate with. and i just love love love the use of filipino words sans italicization, and the amount of trust the author has in their reader.

[Meggie]

This was wonderful to read.

There really is something universal about the deeply personal. On paper, I shouldn’t be able to relate to these stories and experiences bc they’re so different from my life, and yet in so many ways I saw myself reflected in these anecdotes. We’re all just trying to find our place in this big bad world, and we all just want love — for ourselves, from ourselves and others.

[Don Jaucian · Rating 5 out of 5]

😂

[Immanuel Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

a little too many of these essays hit too close to home :)

[jd salinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

[Shin · Rating 3 out of 5]

there's literally no better title for this book than the one it already has. #BriefHistories consists of these pretty short (and if i may say, "cute") essays on local colors that influenced/inspired the realization of his queer self.

in the Las Culturistas podcast they ask their guests "what moment/element in pop culture made you say 'culture was for me'?" this book kind of answers that for Filipino writer/columnist/editor #DonJaucian: he cites Dennis of 90s anime Ghost Fighter, Regine Velasquez's birit hits, and php 120 Booksale magazines among others as character-building mementos of the now realized adult gay man he is. the texts are sweet reads for other millenials who could definitely relate to his nostalgic ponderings and for young boys in provinces who yearn to achieve far beyond the restrictions of wherever they're stuck in.

reading this feels like sitting in a car next to a driver recalling brief (title!) coming-of-age memories from a time not so long ago. i'm surprised to find out Don and I actually have a lot in common childhood-wise! i thought he's been like a wealthy BGC kid ever since! ha ha... and it's brave of him to put in print particular insecurities he has to this day.

his writing is definitely fun and light to read, but then almost to a fault imo. a lot of it feels as just dropping one specific relatable niche after another, without much bridging narratives. he mentions SATC/Carrie Bradshaw as major inspo but these pieces overall do not have much storytelling in a i-said-this, he-did-that type of way. it's like he has an editor who kept saying "just get to the point" so now i want the deleted scenes.

the few, major sentiments also echoed way too often, like the physical insecurities; queerness-is-fun-but-tough; etcetc... i kind of missed #DavidSedaris who almost never had to say he's gay but you just get it as he showed, not tell, you what his experiences were like; Sedaris' essays are smooth rides where the journey is def. more important than the destination whereas here it's like you are teleported from one important Point to another.

but again: this is Brief Histories. I got pretty much what was expected, so im not mad at all. ♡

[jervie jc ☻ · Rating 5 out of 5]

you realize and decide that you are what you are and you will learn to embrace it despite the whole world turning against you and you tell yourself you have to because this is the reality that you will learn to love.

[Chris De Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished this in a day (the generous page margins helped haha). Had to skip two chapters though because I just couldn't relate (one was about Dota, the other was about Fallout).

The writing is approachable. It's honest and raw. And depending on how similar your experiences are with the author, it's very relatable. However I wish there were more essays and that the ones inside were longer and more detailed. They mostly just brushed the surface without diving deep into any topic or experience. Would've loved an essay about his coming out experience, his first love, or his first sexual experience.

Overall it's a decent essay collection loosely connected by the thread of growing up gay (and ashamed) in the Philippines. It doesn't really say anything new or unique about the gay Filipino experience that hasn't been tackled in shows, movies, and TEAM Mag articles aldeady. But it's still a welcome addition to gay Filipino literature.

Quick rundown of each "part":

Part "one" opens with the unrealistic expectations of a career in publishing set by Carrie Bradshaw's character in Sex and the City. As a fan of the show, this was a fun opening essay. The rest of part one stagnated for me as it covered topics I'm not really a fan of such as anime, BLs, and games like Dota and Fallout. So a lot of the references were lost on me.

Part "two" was my favorite and talked about going to gay clubs, "payatot" body issues, discovering fitness and joining Spartan races, the pressures of being a "hot" gay, and hooking up. Most of my favorite excerpts are from just one chapter, "Someday I'll Learn to Love My Body". I wanted more chapters like that.

Part "three" was cute and a bit more random as it touched on wanting a Polly Pocket and Barbies as a kid, bonding with his dad over "Tito" music, and finding solace in God and loving church songs (not my cup of tea of course but I can totally respect it).

Part "four", with its single chapter, was a nice closing about growing up urban poor, the struggle to own a home in one's mid 30s, and the difficulty of moving to the next stages of life when they're still patterned after straight people.

[Gsus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was good ra man pud. Nothing really resounded in me as I am not gay & a 90s kid (well technically I am, but grew up in the 2000s so). So if you
were/ are any of that, this book is for you! Kay he delved a lot into being gay. Gay culture. Being gay in this country. There was a whole ass chapter dedicated to BL films HAHA. If anything, the book was self-indulgent and i don’t mean this in a mean way. I guess almost by nature, bio essays are self-indulgent (go off king it’s ur book— congrats btw on your first!) The writing was good. Easy. Slips through seamlessly.

What I related to I guess is the dating app culture. (but even then my experiences are different as I am on the het side) I love how bumble teaches me about detachment, bitches come & go. The app really is what you make of it. It does have dull days, & pretty interesting ones. But mostly dull days. Swiping has just been a good pass time while on duty (huhu i know irresponsible) I feel loiike it has become a bonding moment for me & my college bestie whom I miss this week because I was separated & rotated to a diff shift : (( It’s been pretty boring. I always get assigned at the ER, and almost nothing goes on (which I’m fine wit tbh because then I could read and get shit done)

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Jaucian writes about the queer experience with warmth and vulnerability. From memories of growing up and grappling with a crisis of identity—through music, video games, and media—to keeping up with the modern times and understanding hook-up culture, dating, and relationships in the internet age—Brief Histories is a time capsule of going through the coming-of-age phase in various stages of his life: as a young child, in his twenties, and now in his thirties.

The essays take us through a rollercoaster of emotions and topics. Reading from a straight man’s perspective, I have resonated with “Learning to Love Tito Music” the most. It’s about how he connects with his dad through the music they love listening to. Without saying a word, they let these moments let them speak to one another. I may have shared the same feeling when it comes to talking about movies with mine. Perhaps, the essay that urged me to rate this four stars when finishing the book.

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked most about this collection of essays was how sincere and piercing the author’s vulnerability was. Although specific to his lived experience, his storytelling made a lot of his experiences feel universal. His straightforward writing also made the essays feel more genuine. He was able to create an intimacy with readers, without forgetting whom he was writing for in the first place: himself.

I also liked that the timelines were blurred throughout the book. You see several iterations of the author’s identity throughout his essays, that it becomes impossible to identify which version of him is speaking from the present. Instead, you how realize how nuanced his personhood is, appreciating that he is greater than the sum of his parts.

[Hayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a certain joy that envelopes your being when you read stories of people that runs parallel into yours.

Jaucian’s collection of essay about his life from kid to adulthood speaks about a lot of the adult gays of the now. Especially me- a queer kid still not knowing what he really is, growing up in a small city in the province, trying to fit in while you were there and once you’re free from that small land mass that held you, you try to be free and explore what could you really be.

Brief and succint but packs a lot memories. Some essays I say I’m okay with and some I see myself so much with. The one about Dota 2 and body image comes to mind the most.

[Gab of Green Gables · Rating 3 out of 5]

This debut non-fiction novel of Don Jaucian recounts his experiences growing up as a gay boy in the Philippines and I really liked how authentic and nostalgic his essays were written. 

I have to be honest when I say that there are numerous pop culture references that I didn't appreciate that much because I grew up in a different generation, but nonetheless, I understood what the author had to say.

From TV shows like Ghost Fighter, toys like Polly Pocket, BL shows, Fallout 4, DOTA, to experiencing participating in running a marathon turning 30, Don Jaucian put his heart on his sleeve with every essay.

[Redg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve strayed away from reading for a long, long, long time so I was so surprised that I managed to read this in one day. I couldn’t put it down even if I tried to pace myself and leave a bit more for the next days.

Being a feminine bisexual, I might not have struggled as much as the author but I guess the millennial Filipino queer experience is very much universal since there were multiple instances the book hit home for me. This book made me feel a lot of things. As a girl with a lot of daddy issues, Learning to Love Tito Rock was my favorite lol. I loved it.

[Sasha Dalabajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something about Don's storytelling makes me feel like we're just dishing out stories over beer at Expo. This collection reminds me of what Alex Chee, another wonderful queer writer, wrote in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel:

"To write is to sell a ticket to escape, not from the truth, but into it. My job is to make something happen in a space barely larger than the span of your hand, behind your eyes, distilled out of all that I have carried, from friends, teachers, people met on planes, people I have only seen in my mind, all my mother and father ever did, every favorite book, until it meets and distills from you, the reader, something out of the everything it finds in you."

I think it is a mark of a good writer when they can allude to the small pockets of the daily life of their readers with far different lives and lived experiences as them, and I think Don did just that.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This essay collection charts the highs and lows of growing up queer in the Philippines. It is also an ode to the generation that grew up in the pre-Internet era where queer role models are hard to come by and queer existence is mainly hushed into silence. The essays are funny, nostalgic, and eventually heartbreaking. I hope for more Filipino queer literary outputs so that the next generation could have something to hold on to.

[Ronald Lanzanas · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Perhaps in the future, we won’t need to defend our rights from people who think we’re abominations, and we will be free to love whoever we want to love.”

Such a great read! Am I the only one who verbalized “Tangina, ano ka ngayon gago?” while reading it? I felt it, I love a cussing fire sign. x, earth sign.

[Sei chii · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wouldve probably enjoyed this better if im not queer—from the outside looking in wondering what these 🏳️‍🌈’s are up to. writing gave endearing oversharer u just met at txf which worked both for and against it. LOVEEE how everything was perfectly prefaced by the title and cover.

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relatable and well written!

Standouts for me:
- Carrie Bradshaw Lied To Me (And Other Delusions)
- Nothing Matters When We're Dancing
- Someday I'll Learn To Love My Body
- My Life Would Be Better If I Lived In That House

[merc · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4] - "Nothing matters when we're dancing."

This was a beautiful invitation to slow down — to resist the hurries of this world and savor the seemingly fleeting — in order to unearth, in these moments, our fountains of joy so often denied.

[Jims Rasel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Jaucian tows the line between memoir and societal commentary so beautifully. His essays are both thought-ful and thought-provoking. I love it!

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quote in memory: “And Jericho sucking on a pacifier? Looks like a twink with daddy issues to me.”

[Mars Mango · Rating 4 out of 5]

“for the little princess in me” ❤️

[Eron Bituin · Rating 3 out of 5]

cute

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The voice in these essays has a tendency to veer towards unearned synthesis over the nitty-gritty labor of detail. But overall this is a solid collection that contains pockets of authentic and moving insights about gay life in the Philippines, just wish those insights were scaffolded or welded to a more fleshed out core.

[Paul Banjawan · Rating 5 out of 5]

ANG GANDA!!!! JOAN DIDION COULD NEVER. charot