The Gangster of Love

I read this book for an Asian American history class and I (as well as my entire class) really enjoyed it. Unlike other Asian American literature, Jessica Hagedorn does not FOCUS on her character's Fillipina identity but instead offers it as part of a more complicated whole. This may put some people off but for me it made Rocky's character less one dimensional and much more interesting. True, as one critic has already complained, this book is not going to go on long, nostalgic descriptions of well-loved aspects of Fillipino culture, but that's not the point. This is a fast-paced novel about a Filipina growing up in the punk scene (first in San Franscisco, then New York); it is a coming of age story. However I disagree that this book does not deserve a place in Fil-Am literature. Quite oppositely, I believe this book depicts Fil-Ams in modern American culture and how they relate to others "on the fringe" of society. That Hagedorn does not focus solely on the how ethnic her characters are helps to see them as people rather than just representatives of an ethnicity. The switches in perspective help the reader to step back from Rocky and see what life is like from the perspective of other people living in her life. This allows the reader to create a more objective understanding of Rocky and the world she lives in.

Amen to Jessica Hagedorn for redeeming post-modernist American literature from stylized pretention in her novels "Dogeaters" and "Gangster of Love." Hagedorn succeeds where Auster and De Lillo fail in capturing polychromatic angles of 1970's 80's America, as well as the chaotic and multi-dimensional experience of family, divorce, Filipina/Asian American identity and immigration from a country already heavily infused with American influence. The layers of irony in the first page of this novel is a testimony to the story that follows.

The Gangster of Love is a book about a Filipino girl, Raquel or Rocky Rivera, who moves to San Francisco from Manila, Philippines. She moves to San Francisco with her brother who had unusual depression moods and her wild mother, leaving behind her father and her older sister in Manila. Rocky's mother and father had an unusual on and off relationship that caused Rocky's mother, Milagros, to leave her father and oldest daughter. Her mother is a wild person who enjoys cooking lumpias and she starts her own store to make a living called "Lumpia X Press." Rocky's brother becomes depressed on and off and he sometimes has temper tantrums in the middle of the night. One of the things he really wants to do is spend time with Rocky. Rocky is a young woman who enjoys writing poetry and songs. She meets her boyfriend, Elvis, who is starting a band. Rocky and Elvis are introduced together by her brother and they become very close in their relationship. Rocky is in a point in her life where she wants to "find herself." By finding herself, Rocky sets out on a road trip with her boyfriend, and two other band mates, to New York to find a record deal there. She is overcome with some obstacles like leaving her mother to move to New York, not spending time with her brother, making decisions about life, sex, and drugs. I enjoyed this book because it had some humorous parts. The author didn't want their readers to be bored so she included some jokes to lighten up the story. Most of the book was humorous to me because many of her jokes were Filipino-related and I could relate to them. I don't think people who don't understand the Filipino culture very well will understand many of the jokes, but others non-Filipinos will find some of her jokes amusing. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in reading about an immigrant coming to the United States from a foreign country, and witnessing the struggles of a young person who is traveling over the country to find what she is and who she wants to be. I would especially recommend this book to Filipino Americans who are interested about their culture and family life in the United States because when I was reading this book, I could relate to a lot of things that Rocky was talking about. I don't recommend this book to those who like books that go by really quickly because this is a book that takes a long time; it goes by pretty slow. Otherwise, I'd recommend this book to others who want to read about a woman struggling toward her decisions in life.

This book hooks you immediately and rarely lulls. The female characters are fascinating, but the male characters seem 2-dimensional (although, this may not be unrealistic). The main character's best friend Keiko is one of the wildest, most interesting characters I've seen in print! It reads more like a poem, gritty and brilliant and chaotic, with the voice often changing from character to character, giving an even broader portrait of the dynamics at play. My only complaint was that the story seemed to wander, giving it an almost Kerouac-type feel, seeming more incidental than integral, more like a biography in poem than a novel. Overall, it was a great read which I devoured in two days, and I look forward to more of Ms Hagedorn's work.

Jessica Hagedorn creates another honest, in your face, yet beautiful depiction of the Filipino immigrant experience. From the her character, Rocky Rivera's life, we relive the struggles of starting over, family loyalty, and of love- of mad, passionate love. From Milagros "La Reyna" Rivera we see a woman of steel, a diva, a mother, and a woman battling with her own demons. And from the eccentric Uncle Marlon, we learn of love, and of sheer, unadulterated aceptance of "family" whether it be by blood or otherwise. The Ganster of Love is a book that makes you long for the those hot and humid Manila summers, and an intense craving for "lumpia" and garlic rice. Everytime you read it brings a new revelation.