Leche

by R. Zamora Linmark

After thirteen years of living in the U.S., Vince returns to his birthplace, the Philippines. As he ventures into the heat and chaos of the city, he encounters a motley cast of characters, including a renegade nun, a political film director, arrogant hustlers, and the country’s spotlight-driven First Daughter. Haunted by his childhood memories and a troubled family history, Vince unravels the turmoil, beauty, and despair of a life caught between a fractured past and a precarious future.

Witty and mesmerizing, this novel explores the complex colonial and cultural history of the Philippines and the paradoxes inherent in the search for both personal and national identities.

R. Zamora Linmark is the author of the novel Rolling the R's (Kaya Press) and two poetry collections, Prime Time Apparitions and The Evolution of a Sigh (Hanging Loose Press). Linmark splits his time between Manila and Honolulu.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Asia, Travel, Adult, Ebooks, Historical Fiction

361 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2011

About the author

R. Zamora Linmark is the author of Rolling The R’s, Prime Time Apparitions, The Evolution of a Sigh, and Leche, sequel to Rolling The R’s. A two-time Fulbright Scholar, he has received grants and fellowships from the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, and twice from the Fulbright Foundation, in 1998, and as a Senior Scholar in 2005.

His residencies include the Macdowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and, most recently, Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain. He has taught at the U.C. Santa Cruz, De La Salle University in the Philippines, and most recently, at the University of Hawaii in Manoa where he was the Distinguished Visiting Writer. His writings can be found in many anthologies including Charlie Chan is Dead (edited by Jessica Hagedorn).

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an enjoyable read. This is the story of a 23-y/o gay man Vince who migrated with his siblings to Hawaii when he was 10. Thirteen years after he goes back to Manila as part of his prize as first-runner up in the Mister Pogi, a male beauty pageant contest.

Linmark's writing style is entertaining and easy to understand. Reading is a breeze. It is even unconventional particularly his effective use of postcards as Vince tells his siblings, boyfriend Edgar and some friends about his experiences in Manila. The postcards have the succinct (brief and yet informative and funny) news as well as interesting pictures that show how Filipinos used to live many decades back. Some of those postcards I have not seen yet even if I think Linmark and I are of the same generation. Well, based on his short bio and the things he experienced as captured in Vince's stories.

The narration is multi-layered and there are at least 4 parallel stories and Linmark jumped from one period to another. This gamble paid well because Linmark seemed to know his style and he knew not to confused his readers. Among the 4 parallel stories, I think the one that is more saleable is the current one - Vince's rediscovery of the Philippines. This story makes this book a recommendable read for Filipino-Americans who would like to know more about the Philippines in an honest yet funny way. You see, some Filipino writers now based in the US have this propensity to write negatively about the country. Linmark, for me, only stayed true to what he sees or probably hears in the country without exaggeration just to attract foreign readers.

I also particularly enjoyed the question that Linmark raised along the story: "What does it take to be a Filipino?" Vince was born in the Philippines but he grew up and turned into adulthood in Hawaii (USA). He still understands Filipino language but he has chosen not to speak the language until that one night when he is conversing with the taxi driver because he is left alone. The driver seems not to consider him a Filipino "my country" instead of saying "our country" when the driver is talking to Vince. But deep inside, Vince feels that he is more Filipino than American.

There are just two things that I found lacking in this book for me to really enjoy it: (1) it lacks depth in terms of personal and family angles of Vince. Linmark tried to capture the strong family ties of the Filipinos by including the character of the grandfather but still I did not find the same warmth that Filipino families normally have among its members, for example in Candy Gourlay's Tall Story.; and (2) the trivias included are just too many that reading the book seems like flipping the pages of Philippine History. Many of the events happened in several decades and Linmark tried to incorporate everything that at some point it became discomforting if not artificial.

As of the title, "Leche" is a Spanish word for "milk" but it is now used as a curse word in the Philippines that is roughly equivalent to "fuck" or "shit." In the book, Leche is a whore house that is turned into museum. Linmark attempted to portray the whorehouse as Philippines itself but I just did not see the connection as a reader.

Overall, though, this is a nice, well-written book that every Filipino should be proud of. Since it is in English and Linmark is a good writer, this is a book that we shouldn recommend to our foreigner friends. It is very rare now that a balanced yet funny book about the Philippines comes along.

Do write us more books like this, Mr. Linmark.

[Kristel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel filled with parodic exuberance and tongue-in-cheek humor often runs the risk of archness to the point coldness, becoming too intent at skewering the ridiculous to actually carry a human center. L. Zamora Linmark's Leche sidesteps this trap by grounding the chaos of his setting with a fallible and searching viewpoint character, a balikbayan named Vince who wins a trip through a Mr. Pogi beauty contest. Through his incredulous but largely game eyes, the readers navigate the crooked sidestreets and gridlocked roads that make up life in 1990s Philippines.

Vince descends into an Aligherian hell from the first scene as he takes in the cacophony of voices, smells, and personalities in a Manila airport. He then interacts with a gaggle of personalities not unlike the Italian nobility that populate Inferno and Purgatorio--from the iconoclastic director Bino Boca to the distressingly effervescent fictional(?!) Kris Aquino. The rugged man who ferries him to the various sights of Manila is even named Dante. Linmark makes these parallelisms overt throughout the novel. But Leche also has much in common with another work of literature to use an epigraph from The Divine Comedy--the eponymous J. Alfred Prufrock from T.S. Eliot's landmark modernist poem.

Much like Prufrock, the inaction and ennui that Vince feels through much of the novel is a response to a wide range of anxieties and hurt that he has experienced in his life. While Prufrock's trauma comes from the unexpected assault of war and modernity, however, Vince's come from leaving his country as a child to build a life in a new one. The novel also intersects Vince's diasporic identity with that of his queer experience. I like that being gay is not the definitive aspect of his character--in fact, you can say that it only ends up complicating his already fraught relationships, not only with his friends and loved ones but also with his two countries.

This novel was slow burn for me. The din generated not only by the characters but also the setting, humor, and writing style can overwhelm a reader who is not expecting it. It took a while to warm up to Vince's character, but the final pages that take him on a jeepney ride out of Manila (and into Paradiso, perhaps?) ties up all the disparate parts of his identity, including his relationship with his deceased grandfather, and allows his story to end somewhere quiet, mournful, and beautiful. It is a wonderful meditation of the question that emigres often grapple with, whether one can ever truly go home.

Notice how I haven't yet mentioned how this novel is a veritable stew of postmodernist narrative tools, the most obvious aspect of Leche. Vince's sightseeing is punctuated by postcard messages, excerpts from tourist books, interview transcripts, even an extended scene from a Bino Boca movie extravaganza. A postmodern homecoming novel about a balikbayan is not new (hello there, Ilustrado). I decided to focus on the novels more affective qualities to demonstrate that formal inventiveness is not enough to create resonance. Leche checks off as many literary references as Ilustrado (read: a hell of a lot of them), but I argue that they do not distract from the characters' fiercely beating hearts.

Diaspora stories have become a staple of Philippine fiction, thanks to our historical and economic realities. Because this experience fractures so many of us, much of our literary real estate is invested in collecting the broken pieces and gluing them back together. Leche's foray into the diaspora archetype shows that some of the most emotionally rich places exist within the jagged edges that we are trying to smooth over. Let us go then, you and I.

Read on my blog.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished Leche yesterday, and am planning on teaching this in Filipino American Literature at USF in the Fall.

Some quick thoughts: I like Linmark's portrayal of Manila, which is one of the principal characters in this novel. Manila is crazy, contradictory, it evades understanding, especially by our apparently ordered American minds. Linmark's "hero," is the balikbayan Vince, or Vicente. So this book is his hero journey through the morass of Manila, to try to figure himself out, as a Filipino, an American, the grandson of a Bataan death March survivor, as a Filipino American whose ancestry is very much the story of the Philippines itself - American soldiers and American teachers, immigrants/expatriates. His family is broken, fractured by immigration and economics. The microcosm/stand-in for the Philippines throughout history is Leche, the orphanage, brothel, museum, sex club, which all of the Philippines' colonizers have had their claws in at some point in time. Even getting there is a chore for Vicente.

Academics, all of his American university reading - the almost hilarious because it's true Decolonization for Beginners - and the travel guide/tourist tips, both of which pepper and forward the narrative at significant places, seem to want to help, but only make it worse - sometimes because they point out the crazy shit in which Vicente is stuck, or because his understanding of the contradictions of the place are only clearing things up to fill him with more confusion and dread.

Speaking of Decolonization for Beginners and tourist tips, these interjections into the narrative are a very good and strategic variance of form within the form of the novel. In addition to these are the screenplay format of the Kris Aquino Show, and the postcards back home to his family and friends in Hawaii. Vicente's notes on these are also these gems of contradiction, irony, and insight. They give the narrative a visual element, and if you look at the book's acknowledgments page, you will see that others have contributed these postcard images. In this way, the novel becomes something of a collaborative effort; this is the enactment of a Filipino value of collectivity, which Linmark already enacts in Leche.

It's a multivocal work, which again, reinforces that Filipino collectivity, as well as the noise! There is so much noise for Vicente to sort through, in order to get to the meat of the matter. How to gauge how much the balikbayan knows about Filipino culture and Filipino-ness; American academics could only teach him so much. Interacting with the popular cultural powerhouses as Kris Aquino, the filmmaker Bino Boca, the nun activist turned actress Sister Marie, then the "common folks," the taxi drivers, the maid, the maid of the maid, the sex workers, the tour guides, the five girls who ring up Vicente's five postcards in the SM store - again, these add to the crazy, the confusion, the muddle.

Ultimately, this is a satisfying read precisely because there is a point where all of this crazy slowly thins out, and the ending is a resolution that is and isn't a resolution. But for me, it is a point of much needed and even empowering clarity.

[Benito Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s no reason why R. Zamora Linmark shouldn’t shoot for the Great Philippine Novel in his ambitious and wide-ranging new book, Leche, even if it’s told from the perspective of a balikbayan, returning to the Philippines after 13 years. The fact that there may be anywhere from 8.2 to 11 million Filipinos overseas – about 10 percent of the Filipino population – surely makes it an “authentic” Filipino stance from which to write. Two of the greatest chroniclers of the Filipino experience, N.V.M. Gonzalez and Bienvenido Santos, wrote from this same vantage point of in-betweenness, after all. Part linear journey of discovery, part fractured travelogue and history lesson, Leche brilliantly milks (ahem) those forms. (Yes, I can get away with that pun because I'm Filipino -- see more below.)

I do drop the A-word ("authentic") above, and put it in quotation marks, not to stir up old and rather exhausted debates about representation, but because it’s the primary concern of Leche’s main character, Vince de los Reyes. (Previous readers of Linmark will recognize Vince as the shy, newly-arrived immigrant in Rolling the R's, from 1997.) Our returnee Vince – or Vincent, or Vicente, or Vincente, depending on who’s mispronouncing it – plunges into the chaotic swirl of Metro Manila and discovers, to his shock, that he no longer feels at home in the heat and humidity. It doesn’t matter that he lives in Hawai’i and checks the "Filipino" box when filling up -- sorry, I meant "filling out" -- census forms.

Throughout the novel are sections called “Tourist Tips,” enumerating bits of advice that vary between the commonplace (“The best way to get around Manila is by taxi”) to the oddly gnomic (“It’s not unusual for a salesperson to ask you about your marital status”) to the wry (“Manila is very rich in air pollution”) -- but it's the word "tourist" that's most telling. How can one, after all, be a tourist in one's own homeland? Vince is stung by his tour guide’s casual reference, in conversation, to “you Americans” and “we Filipinos;” how is it that he can be alienated from his own people, when the only identity he knows is of being Filipino?

And this leads Linmark onto some perilously well-trodden paths; this is, after all, the stuff of freshman-level essays on Filipino identity and Pilipino Cultural Nights. But it should be said that these are also some of the concerns of the Great American Novel, of immigrant American writers similarly searching for a place called home. In Leche, the magic is all in the execution: a jauntily digressive omniscient narrator whispering in the wings (and sometimes, disconcertingly possessing minor characters), postcards and ironic commentary, ecstatic leaps into poetic diction.

From the start, Linmark situates the reader squarely in this process of homecoming, much like Miguel Syjuco's protagonist near the beginning of Ilustrado: the balikbayan boxes at the departure area, the applause upon landing, the insanity at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The act of homecoming is fraught with both logistical and symbolic anxiety: will Customs ask to open my boxes? Will I recognize my family from the throngs of well-wishers? Is this really home?

His precise observations about departure and homecoming at the beginning of the novel set the tone for the rest of the novel. Linmark's descriptions of the maelstrom that is Manila rings wonderfully true throughout. There's a fantastic section, for instance, about the Philippine jeepney, which is depicted on the book's cover, and its driver who has "[transformed] himself into a Hindu god with three eyes and eight hands."

One of Leche's set pieces, for instance, is an imagined talk show interview between Vince and the former Presidential daughter and actress (do I put that in quotation marks as well?), Kris Aquino. (This Kris, bless her, never leaves the house without Solzhenitsyn in her gym bag, to read while stuck in traffic.) My first reaction upon reading it was that it must be a real transcript; Linmark just nails the dialogue, full of hilarious malapropisms and English that's very slightly "off," at first glance. (Such linguistic wit is also one of the hallmarks of the book, for the humor, one might say, is genuinely Filipino: full of awkward puns, and sometimes breathtakingly inappropriate.) But one can also read the interview transcript, in conjunction with Linmark's poetry, for instance, as a reclaiming of the colonizer’s language. It's not English as American newscasters know it.

And it's this same off-kilter relationship to the "real," whatever "real English" may be, that characterizes Leche. Real-life presidents and minor celebrities appear, sometimes as "the real thing," sometimes as barely-disguised versions of themselves. (Ninotchka Rosca, I'm sure, recognized herself in a cameo.) For instance, the Leche of the title – “milk,” literally, but also an imprecation, and a different kind of bodily fluid altogether – is an underground cabaret and sex club that's also orphanage, museum, and Presidential whorehouse rolled into one, and Linmark uses this as an effective metaphor to explore the uneasy (or, to be more precise, easy) relationship between the sacred and the lurid, the political and the religious, the indigenous and the colonial, that exists in the Philippines. But is this place based on reality? In the Philippines, it may very well be. To the reader, it all seems so surreal, but as one character scolds Vince: "There's nothing surreal about Manila. It's only surreal because Manila's no longer part of your world." Sur-real, then, in the strict etymology of the word, as Linmark's fragmented narrative mirrors the country as refracted through colonialism and Hollywood.

Leche is not quite the playful, riotous explosion that was Linmark's debut novel, Rolling the R's; in that work, you could feel this sense of a joyful and barely controlled rebelling against the constraints of the narrative form and perhaps even the English language itself. (Although I must remind myself, and should be chastened, by the fact that my praise above also has to do with my unfamiliarity with Pidgin. I'm very guilty of exoticizing here.)

Leche is, in a sense, somewhat more restrained and sober (especially in combination with its emotionally shattering ending), but no less adventurous or ambitious. It's a novel mostly set in Manila, and perhaps one instantly recognizable to the Filipino reader -- but, as the omniscient travel guide tells us, "Your Manila is only one of the hundreds of millions of versions." Linmark's version is well worth visiting.

[Lauri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the most interesting books I have ever read! It's an eye-opening look at what it's like for a native Filipino to return to the Philippines, proving once and for all that, yes, you can go home again -- but it WILL be weird! Be prepared for a look at a totally different culture and lifestyle. Excellent and very well-written!

[Paolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leche channels all that I love in Dante, Swift, Fellini, Calvino, Cesaire, Burroughs, Pasolini, Wong, Acker, and Brocka's art. A landmark by Linmark, Leche is the novel about a native son's return to the Philippines I long hoped to see published in my lifetime. I've already packed it in my desert isle suitcase, right next to its prequel, Rolling the Rs. Yeah, folks--it's that GREAT.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. When I started it I had no idea of the Hawai`i connection in the book so that just made it better, of course. So much in this book reminded me of my Filipino family and friends in my second home.

This is the first time I've read anything by a Filipino author but it won't be the last.

[Michael Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

R. Zamora Linmark continues to be a master at giving a voice to Asians and Pacific Islanders, especially those who are, or relate to, or have friends and family members of LGBT backgrounds. This novel masterfully weaves themes of colonization and other socio-political forces that drive self-identity. So much noise in the story, it actually feels Filipino.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could feel Manila all over again. This book is a blast that makes the reader think and feel and sense what it might be like to return home where one does not necessarily want to be or feel welcome. As this seems somewhat of an homage to Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters, pair the two and find yourself mesmerized.

[Dr. Nicolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had a great time reading this one! I especially like the juxtaposition of the novel's present with historical past and imperial history of the US-Philippine relationship. Looking forward to working this into my candidacy exams this school year!

[Patrick Limcaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve read my important review of Jessica Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle, you would know that Philippines-set novels that make cheap, obvious (grinding poverty, golden-hearted prostitutes, balut, etc.) observations about Philippine things are not my favorite Philippines-set novels. Maybe this is because I don’t want my country described in a basic manner. Or maybe, I just don’t want my country’s filth thrown back at my face so relentlessly. What else could Fil-Ams write about other than the overbearing presence of balut in the Filipinos’ lives? There are so many things, actually, but maybe they are not the novelists for the kind of novel I might enjoy and not have issues with. So I forgive them.

While it may be worth expressing disdain over a novel’s obsession with the Filipinos’ obsession with Kris Aquino, spending so much negative energy on a single novel is not a very productive way of talking about a book that shows glimpses of fun times. Plus, it really kills the fun, which is exactly what happened with me, with Leche. If I keep having these complaints, I would be left with no choice but to go through life always suspecting that the next Fil-Am written novel I’d be reading will have poverty that I can smell off the pages, complex hosteses, and murder mysteries set always and forever in Hawaii, which could result to displeasure, indifference or fatigue, which would all be detrimental to my capacity to enjoy the consumption of novels set in the Philippines, regardless of the era.

My heart is a forgiving heart so I didn’t feel the need to chastise Jessica H. so verily, but with R. Zamora Linmark’s Leche, I’m uncertain. I find it very necessary to find it in my heart to forgive him for stuffing Leche with predictable observations about how rotten, quirky, stinky Metro Manila, Philippines is. Besides, it’s his novel and he has every right to stuff it with whatever.

Vince is a Fil-Am who moved to Hawaii when he was 10. He returns to the Philippines after winning 1st place in a Mister Pogi competition for which the prize is a trip to his home country. He makes the trip because there wouldn’t be a novel if he didn’t but, actually, there might still have been a different novel, one that doesn’t bludgeon your face with quirks and things.

Vince’s move to Hawaii is acknowledged as a good thing. The reader knows this because when he gets to Manila (which the author wisely, although briefly, acknowledges is not the Philippines), like the most typical, most predictable Fil-Am you have ever talked to, Vince only has sour feelings for the dirty, grimy, crime-infested city. This is not in the least bit shocking because… these are non-shocking truths. If you thought you were getting a character who cherishes the quirkiness of PI, you would be slightly wrong. Balikbayan Fil-Ams who have nice things to say about Manila are maybe the kind of characters you might be wanting but this book does not give it.

Leche is filled with Filipino quirks the way Rebisco cream crackers are filled with buttery fillings; it’s delightful at first but tastes yucky after the third cracker. The novel highlights them through randomly inserted ‘Tourist Tips’ which are cutely interspersed with whatever shit Vince is going through in Ermita or wherever. If you need a Philippine guide book, buy Leche instead of Culture Shock or Lonely Planet. The things you will read about the Philippines and its peoples may not be the most accurate but the spirit is captured, sort of.

As I’ve said, my heart is forgiving. It is just a muscle after all and muscles get tired. I think I would have enjoyed Leche more if it didn’t have this:

‘He looks so much better live than on my Sony Trinitron,’

I just HATE this and I can’t know why.

I refuse to be amused by a novel that has a character who says a brand name in place of an actual noun. It reminds me of TV shows in which dutiful girlfriends or wives are eternally saying lovely things such as ‘Heto, pinagluto kita ng paborito mo,’ which I’m 90% sure no self-respecting grown woman says in real life.

Leche is both endearing and infuriating.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, iconoclastic writer takes on all the contradictions of Manila in the 1990s -- and does a fantastic job. Of all the collage novelists I've read in the past few years, I think Zamora Linmark uses the genre most effectively. His narrative is interspersed with post cards, lists (of Tourist Tips from travelers to the Philippines), dialogue from a TV talk show -- but it all works, and none of it seems forced. The different modes allow him to relate information that wouldn't quite fit into the narrative (his post cards selectively show the different aspects of his trip that he relates to his brother and sister, his best friend in Hawaii, his mother) along with photos of the Philippines during the U.S. colonial period, some funny, some gruesome. For anyone whose wondered what those early days in the aftermath of the overthrow of Marcos were like -- when poverty still persisted but freedom of expression meant that all kinds of expression were unleashed -- I think Leche captures it beautifully. Highly recommend!

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about identity, especially for immigrants. Is the protagonist American, or Phillipino, both, neither? On his first trip back after 13 years, he finds out it's not a simple question. (p.s. I enjoyed the novel, but didn't see the point of all the homoerotic imagery - it didn't seem to add to the question of identity in any useful way. It was as though the author was trying to make the book more titillating, or the character more real, or something . . . ?)

[Cory Blystone · Rating 5 out of 5]

R. Zamora Linmark writes with so much honesty and truth surrounding the fakeness, the reader is left in awe at what they've just devoured. Utilizing a heavy dose of humor to tell a story about the tragedy of The Philippines allows the reader to push through with ease. This author has quickly become a favorite, not just for the humor and honesty, but the vulgarity that is eerily reminiscent of my own writing.

[Jaymee · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone who does not understand her own concept of home, this book greatly appealed to me. To be home in Manila and yet not, with its constant changes and surprises--both frustrating and endearing. It's a rollicking fun and bittersweet tour of Manila; one journey that will hopefully guide you in finding your own personal Manila, and self.

[Ferdinand · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[PATRICK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Setting the humor aside, Leche explores the concept of home as an American-Filipino goes to the period where Kris Aquino is queen (which is personally okay with me for some reason).

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Linmark is an author I have wanted to read for a long time and have only been hampered by the lack of any of his works being in UK libraries and my reluctance to pay the sometimes outrageous cost of postage to have his books delivered (I hate to sound obsessive but if booksellers in the USA are going to charge $30 for sending a book to the UK I would hate to be based in most of the rest of the globe) but fortunately I finally managed to get hold of a copy which didn't cost me four times the cost of the book in postage. I loved and enjoyed it and it has only whetted my appetite for more works by the author.

The novel is set in 1991 just before the eruption of Mt Pinatubo and the return of Vince a Filipino-American to the country of his birth and his picaresque adventures in a Manilla. It is a phantasmagoria of the bizarre, the surreal, the unbelievable and the truth which is actually more incredibly then anything you could make up - it was only by accident I discovered that the character of Kris Aquino, daughter of the 'saintly' president Cory Aquino, tv presenter and star of horror and schlock films is not a character from Mr. Linmark's most fevered satirical dreams but a real person. This seemed less surprising when I remembered that the sons of Cory Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos have both subsequently been elected president of the Philippines. That Ferdinand Jr.'s nickname of 'Bong-Bong' hadn't killed his chance of electoral success reminded me that I knew little and understood less about this marvellous country.

For those of us old to remember the Philippines 1986 'People Power Revolution'* it is impossible not to recall the simplistic Manichean tale spun by every journalist, print or tv, about the battle between the simple, pious, widow Corazon, or Cory to her countless adulatory friends in the west, Aquino and the grotesquely absurd but completely evil Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda, an Asian Evita without a Lloyd Webber soundtrack. We all absorbed the tale of the sweet widow woman outsider swept into power on the backs of the peoples indignation and charged to cleanse the Augean stables of the Philippines of the corruption and toadyism which had brought only poverty and chaos. We were all mystified, then confused and disillusioned when nothing changed and Mrs. Aquino's government and administration was composed of not starry-eyed technocratic idealists but the same old names and faces that had worked with Marcos. When it came out that one of the most fervent opponents to the land-redistribution from landlords enacted by President Aquino's was the president herself who ensured none of the 16,000 acres she inherited from her father were affected most people in the west simply forgot the whole business and wrote it off as one of those youthful enthusiasm it was best not to talk about - like pot smoking and sexual experimentation at college.

Linmak's 'Leche' is a paean to the way almost everything and everyone, once in the Philippines is transformed, diverted, corrupted by a history and culture that is at times monolithic but also syncretic in ways unimaginable to an outsider. You cannot change, fight or resist it; in the end you don't surrender to it because that would imply you ever had a real chance of resisting you simply accept what is, and will always be, unless it changes but the change will mean nothing. The Philippines is the prime example of everything changing so that everything can remain the same.

But 'Leche' is more than an absurdist take on absurdist reality. It is a very fine and touching exploration of what roots and heritage actually mean if they mean anything. Vince, the returning Filipino-American, finds that he is nowhere at home and, like many forced into exile and the adaptation of a new world, will find that he has betrayed his past in order to be secure in his present.

I think this is a brilliant novel. I have no doubt that many of its references will by impenetrably obscure to many readers - well thank god for that - I am tired of everyone expecting to recognise themselves and their surroundings in every tale they read. If you look at the world and are disappointed when you see the unfamiliar then go buy a mirror. The point of reading is to see what we don't know or recognise. The world is full of differences and we shouldn't ask 'why are they not like us?' we should simply shut up listen and learn.

*It is quite possible that it was the first use of the appellation 'People' to an event in an approved way by non-dictator societies. For years the application of 'People' had been derided and avoided because of its links to Hitler with his 'People's car' and 'Peoples Autobahns' as well as countless Stalinist and/or Soviet uses of an adjectival 'People' in connection with some depressing housing estate or tawdry product that didn't work.

[Denise]

Great story telling. and good info and photos about life in Manila.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following a young man going back to the Philippines after ten years. He tires to navigate the changes he saw in his old country, his new identity, and balancing being Filipino and American, and gay.

This is my second Linmark book I read, and like what I said on his first book this story was something from my life. Linmark writes story I see in front of me, around me, and in me. I can relate to his character, their inner struggle, and the culture because it is very similar to who I am and to where I was raised. That being that he write were I was raised and live. Linmark, to me is a special author because he write stories I know and seen in real life. And I am happy to see that in a novel for others to read.

This book was way better than Rolling R's. I love RR in a different way, as that spoke to my childhood. This however spoke to a young adult side of me. I understand the inner struggle that Vince, our MC, faces with. The question of if youre Filipino, American, or Filipino American. And why, and how others see you. I understood that confusing and inner conflict. Vince, never once question his sexaulity, but he questions how is sexaulity works as he wants a relationship, but it seems he cant find one for long.

This book does have mix media as there are postcards, tips for tourist, definition of words, and dream sequences into the novel. I liked most of this as it brought somethign new and fresh to the story and also educating us, educating me about my culture. The journey of culutre and history was well done and I learned more and more about what it means to be filipino.

I did not care for the dream sequences of the story. I understood why it was there, but for it did not added any enjoyment to my reading. The ending I felt could be done better, as I wanted more, or rather see more of the ending. it was a good ending, but I did want to see what happened afterwards.

Overall I great book to understand what it means to be a filipino from American, learning about the filipino culture and history.

Gave this book a 4 out of 5 postcards.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times Leche was quite funny and clearly ambitious, but it didn't really hold together at all. Ideas, characters, plots, revelations, etc. were picked up momentarily, then discarded forever a few pages later. Every character -- regardless of age, sex, gender, class, etc. -- spoke in the arch, allusive voice of a drag queen cliché. The tone toggled jerkily and inexplicably between high camp and didactic historian, with extended bouts of treacly sentimentality, but not in a way that seemed clever or bathetic -- more like the author had bitten off more than he could chew and didn't know how to fit it all together. Indeed, the whole enterprise felt distracted and manic, and I was rarely engaged for more than a few pages at a time. I understand this frantic, piebald style could be an attempt to echo the hellish chaos of modern-day Manila (which comes across as a truly awful place to visit), but as even a cursory glance at Midnight's Children (or, to a lesser extent, One Hundred Years of Solitude) reveals, a novel can embody the cacophonous, babbling multitudes of the "turd world" while still being readable, sophisticated, and engrossing.

PS. 3 stars instead of 2 only because of all the random and quite funny marginalia/trivia about modern Filipino culture.

[DW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, I really didn't get this book. But unlike most books I don't get, I'm reluctant to declare it "bad." Perhaps what I saw as flaws were actually "artistic decisions." Guess it's been too long since my last literature class for me to say.

I spent most of the book wondering what exactly was the Mr. Pogi contest that Vicent won to give him the trip to the Philippines. Got all the way to the end and it was never explained. It took me a long time to figure out exactly what he was supposed to be doing there, too (as far as I could tell, escorting Kris Aquino to one event, and then nothing). I found the book disjointed, and I didn't really identify with the main character. For instance, I don't try to pick up sexual partners while buying postcards. Several scenes (the TV interview, the tour of Intramuros, and the tour of Leche), shoved a lot of information at the reader and became unwieldy. I hate books that interrupt the story for author diatribes. If your opinion isn't a plot point, write an op-ed or something.

Interesting facts from this book:
Leche is a Filipino swear word
Yes, no, and maybe are interchangeable for FIlipinos
Kris Aquino stars in horror films
Leaving your kids with their grandfather while you go overseas to work can create a lot of angst
LBM is a Filipino term

In summary, I read it because it was the only (English) book I could get my hands on about life in the modern Philippines, and it entertained me on the flight to Manila.

[Dante Gorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really entertaining and well written, it's something I wish I could tell my younger self to prioritize reading. It explores themes of feeling "Filipino enough," how you always feel out of place no matter where you go, etc. At the time I bought this book I was 18, I grew up in a mostly white suburb with maybe 3 Filipinos I knew of, and no one really denied my Filipino-ness until I went to community college who had a more diverse population. I started to feel like I wasn't connected to my culture enough, so I desperately sought out Filipino media to feel connected, which is why I picked up this book. But I would procrastinate on reading it for so long, I'm now at the age where I've relaxed a bit and it doesn't really matter to me if others think I'm Filipino enough or not. I feel like this book handles that subject well and I think I would have benefited from actually reading it back when I first bought it.

Although, I think the book also challenges the reader to be a more "relaxed" person from the very beginning, with it's generous use of reclaimed slurs, and it has a certain lack of shyness when describing certain things. A younger, social justice oriented person like my 18 year old self might find this a little uncomfortable to read, but it does add to the feeling of these characters simply being people, and this is a snapshot of their life.

[Achilles Toledo · Rating 5 out of 5]

For any queer Filipino Americans out there, I highly recommend you read this book. It showed a part of me that I hadn't realized I was missing. The main character being a queer FilAm was what originally brought me to read this book, but I kept reading for much more. It did an amazing job of showing that feeling of being out of place no matter where you go and carving out an identity/home in spite of it.

Though I didn't understand many of the historical references, that didn't stop me from connecting with the main character in such a deep way. I was in tears, especially at the end. I really can't recommend this book enough. If you're a queer FilAm trying to find yourself, this is an amazing read.

[Emma Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the way this book was written. It's full of flashbacks and memories. If you're okay with nonlinear writing, this is a great book to read because it's also full of postcards, side anecdotes, and tourist tips.
Vince is filipino, but he was sent to live in Hawaii like so many other filipinos. This takes place not to long after the Marcos regime and is dated, but still true to filipino culture and lifestyles. When Vince returns to Manilla, he struggles with his identity as a filipino and someone who grew up in America; he also struggles with some unresolved familial issues. Just a light read if you enjoy the history and culture of the Philippines.

[Kezia Jusayan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good thing I kept reading this book. In the beginning I was afraid it was a "You know you're Filipino If" compilation of anecdotes being passed off as a novel but after the first few chapters I started to find it amusing and interesting. I don't often read Filipino literature but I'm glad I took the time to read this. I'm not one to take offense at people who portray the Philippines in a negative light - especially since most of the time it's the truth. So I found this quirky novel as a funny, spot-on take on the Philippines.

[Cee San Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many moments. I love that the book offers fun tips and interjections for tourists visiting the Philippines. What I found that resonated with me is Vicente’s feeling of “Filipinoness.” When you leave and become some form of Americanized, there’s guilt of not coming back or feelings that you’ve changed. But Vicente always will be a Filipino; he never forgot his language, it just was dormant waiting for him to use it. And for him to go back and visit his old home and how the book ended was haunting.

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It started out really interesting me -- I am very fond of books with fast paced small sections, written from different perspectives and in different formats. Yet, I became confused and a bit bored about half way through, so I just gave up on it.

I often push through books anyways and find them eventually to have provided a good read -- but I borrowed this from the library, tried it several times over the three weeks, and just couldn't.

[Angela De ocampo · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning of this book actually reminded me of Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado. Hence, I continued to read it. But towards the middle, it just got boring. In its quest to be as funny and truthful as possible about Manila and all its quirks, it became a book about whining a lot. And looking to have sex. And whining. And looking to have sex. It just hanged in that cycle, and none of the characters were interesting enough to follow, sympathize with, or even care for.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was excited to think that maybe this novel was a Filipino version of Amy Tan's novels. That it would give Americans a peek into Filipino culture through entertaining stories. Instead it is attempting to be a Filipino version of David Sedaris, however very disappointly unsuccessful. Am currently reading/skimming this book hoping that it gets better.