Neal's intro

Neal Drinnan, author of Pussy's Bow, Quill and Glove Puppet, and celebrated man about town in Sydney, introduced me at my Sydney launch.

It was explained to me that it was absolutely necessary to have someone launch me, and that it was the standard thing to do.

Another friend explained to me that it might be because there is a small writing community in Australia and that it is necessary to be introduced to it by someone who is known. Simply getting up and doing a reading, or being introduced by the publisher (as I was in Canada) would be seen as too bold and brash leading to comments of "who does she think she is?"

Nevertheless, I was very happy that Neal, a talented writer and all around nice guy, was willing to launch me in Sydney and that Dennis Altman, well-known writer, colleague and friend launched me in Melbourne.

Here's Neal's very flattering introduction for my launch:

I first encountered Mr Quan's work when I was judging the stories for Best Gay Erotica 2002 (soon to be in a Bookshop Darlinghurst near you). His story Positive was one of the best stories in the collection and the first piece of writing I've encountered that successfully and magnificently eroticised HIV and diffused it of the terror it has wrought for the last twenty years. When he asked me to read Calender Boy, I was more than happy to explore his talent further as well as being rather intrigued as to why Penguin would have bought in a collection of short stories from a Canadian author. After all, in the hothouse environment of Gay Aussie lit, a fella wants to know what the competition is and whether this town is big enough for both of us. I've gotta say I'm still tossing up as to whether or not I'm going to let him stay.

Andy was grumbling to me the other day about how reviewers always pick on the marginality or ethnicity of a book's author when they review it, it seems that by our marginality we shall be known. If you're gay, you're relegated to the realms of gay authordom, if you're Asian, you're an Asian author and if you double that, you're a gay-Asian author but if a reviewer quadrupled that and described you as an Asian-Canadian gay writer living in Australia they may just end the review with something like "isn't it about time Andy Quan settled down?"

Well I don't see it somehow, and when you read a collection of stories like Calender Boy, all written in the first person, they leave an uncanny impression that what you are in-fact reading is an autobiography of sorts. (Edmund White has always hedged his bets by describing his work as fictional autobiography-a term that pretty well covers all contingencies. He always adds by way of further explanation that as his work is a celebration of irresponsibility, readers must be expected to be led astray.) Andy Quan may also be guilty of such wiles.

As a good many of these stories take place in another land, I guess we'll just have to trust him however and if he continues to write kiss and tell stories, he might just find himself having to launch his next book in New Zealand or Brazil. At times these stories offer such startling insights into the narrator that it is hard to believe they're fiction and I just want to say now for the record that the character in one story named Neal whose name is spelt N-E-A-L just like mine and who came from Melbourne and has a history of violence in his relationships is definitely not me. If it was, I guess I'd be beating the crap out of Andy instead of launching his book.

Calender Boy is really the story of many young men from the 80's and 90's. The Asian perspectives where they occur are both funny and poignant and give voice to a cultural yearning that can be found in any marginal ethnic group in predominantly Anglo cultures. But his stories about travel, loves and self image give wonderful insights into places we've all been. Perhaps the most important impression I can offer on his book is that it is a celebration of youth and all the calamities and insecurities that attend it, the first loves, the backpacking, the college years and the sex. It's a book about the dreams we have of connecting deeply with people in our youth and the reality that as we grow older, we find life is more often about moving apart.

I hope you'll all buy and enjoy Calendar Boy and I wish him every success with his prickly pink cactus. Congratulations Andy.