Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap

I've got one chapter left in this book and Oh My Gosh. Before you get too excited, it’s not out yet. I picked up an advanced reading copy at the GLBA Fall Trade Show this past weekend.

Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap feels shockingly personal for a collection of short stories. Maybe they are? Lapcharoensap is only 25, so imagine how young he was when he first started writing them.

When I read the opening story, “Farangs”, I wanted to stop right after the first page and call a friend who has never been to Thailand and insist on reading it to him. Maybe you’ve already seen it, “Farangs” was in Granta 84: Over There: How America Sees the World. Anyway, I was so frustrated when I got to the end of the chapter and realized that what was coming next, was not a continuation of that story. Nope, this is a collection of shorts. I mentioned that already, but when I started reading the book, I didn’t know. Still, his writing was so gripping I read on. And I’m having a tough time figuring out which story is my favorite so far.

Ok, lets give you some details about Lapcharoensap and the book. First of all, it will come out in hardcover January 2005. So if you have any book review outlets, get your pitches in now. Here’s what people are already saying:

“A raw and tangy collection of stories set in Thailand exploring, with comic poignancy, how the small country is absorbing waves of Westernization.” —Charlotte Abbott, Publishers Weekly

“ ‘Pussy and elephants. That’s all these people want.’ What a splendid truth, hilarious and sad in equal parts. Gifted with colonialist global-gallop subject matter, the writer does not rest there. He finds a deadpan heartfelt voice, true comic scope, a whole new use for rage. There’s a force and rich latent potential in all the work.” —Allan Gurganus, Judge’s Citation from The Hopwood award

It was mentioned in the American Bookselling Association’s White Box. And wait till you see his tour list and marketing outlet. Smart. So, smart. That Grove/Atlantic, they must have some bucks! Look at this…This tour is flawless…

• 16-city tour (Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Ann Arbor, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Iowa City, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Toronto)
  
• National advertising campaign (including The New York Times Book Review

About the author (straight from the galley):
Rattawut Lapcharoensap was born in 1979 in Chicago and raised in Bangkok. He was educated at Triamudomsuksa Pattanakarn, Cornell University, and the University of Michigan, where he received an MFA in creative writing. His honors include the David TK Wong Fellowship, the Avery Jules Hopwood Award, and the Andrea Beauchamp Prize. His stories have appeared and are upcoming in Granta, Glimmer Train, Zoetrope: All Story, and Best New American Voices edited by Francine Prose. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Here is a sample chapter “At the Cafe Lovely,” which previously appeared on Zoetrope.

And here is what got me….

The first page from “Farangs”. If putting this here upsets you Grove/Atlantic, just let me know and I’ll take it down.

“This is how we count the days. June: the Germans come to the Island—football cleats, big T-shirts, thick tongues—speaking like spitting. July: the Italians, the French, the British, the Americans. The Italians like pad thai, its affinity with spaghetti. They like light fabrics, sunglasses, leather sandals. The French like plump girls, rambutans, disco music, baring their breasts. The British are here to work on their pasty complexions, their penchant for hashish. Americans are the fattest, the stingiest of the bunch. They may pretend to like pad thai or grilled prawns or the occasional curry, but twice a week they need their culinary comforts, their hamburgers and their pizzas. They’re also the worst drunks. Never get too close to a drunk American. August brings the Japanese. Stay close to them. Never underestimate the power of the yen. Everything’s cheap with imperial monies in hand and they’re too polite to bargain. By the end of August, when the monsoon starts to blow, they’re all consorting, slapping each other’s backs, slipping each other drugs, sleeping with each other, sipping their liquor under the pink lights of the Island’s bars. by September they’ve all deserted, leaving the Island to the Aussies and the Chinese, who are so omnipresent one need not mention them at all.

Ma says, “Pussy and elephants. That’s all these people want.” She always says this in August, at the season’s peak, when she’s tired of farangs running all over the island, tired of finding used condoms in the motel rooms, tired of guests complaining to her in five languages…”