Queer Chinese American writer Geoffrey Mak takes the personal essay to new, and sometimes unsettling, heights, in his book “Mean Boys: A Personal History” (Bloomsbury, 2024).
Described as a “memoir-in-essays,” Mak, the gay son of an evangelical minister, takes readers on his volatile and visceral personal journey, which includes the techno clubs of Berlin, various illicit substances, his sexual assault, and ultimately an examination of mass-murderer Elliot Rodger. Mak generously made time for an interview in advance of his Nov. 24 Miami Book Fair appearance. Visit miamibookfair.com for more information.
In the Author’s Note for your book “Mean Boys: A Personal History,” you said, “I wrote most of these essays for the Internet,” and that awareness of your readership extended to “what they wanted to hear, and what they were wearing.” Is that still your target audience, or were you looking to expand it with the book?
If I could go back in time and inspire my 26-year-old self to keep writing, I would say, “Babe, in 10 years, you’ll get everything you’ve ever dreamed of, just online-only.” I still see the natural habitat of the personal essay; yet the internet has a tendency for fragmentation and bubbles. When I decided to write a book for a mainstream press, I thought a lot about how a book — unlike a painting — is a mass-produced object, which makes it a more democratic medium, almost humble. I thought a lot about the opportunity to reach readers in Idaho or Oregon or Arkansas, and, in fact, I now get emails or Instagram DMs from readers in all those states. I wanted to explore universal themes that anyone can relate to, such as the wages of status in a high school cafeteria, or the process of forgiving one’s own father.
You also mentioned James Baldwin and Joan Didion, as well as Ed White, Hilton Als, and Alan Hollinghurst, among others. How important are these writers to you in your work?
I love that you called him Ed, because he is Ed. Each of those writers gave me something that is a part of me. Baldwin: conviction. Didion: cadence. White: self-mythology. Als: voice. Hollinghurst: sex.
Another writer, Wesley Yang, is featured prominently in the “Identity Despite Itself” essay. Do you know if he’s aware of being the essay’s subject? If so, has he told you how he feels about it?
Marco Roth, a friend, was one of the founding editors of n+1, and commissioned and edited Wesley Yang’s remarkable essay, “The Face of Seung-Hui Cho” when it came out in 2008. After Marco read my book, he sent it to him. In Marco’s view, I had at last given Yang his due: taking him as seriously as he deserved, which is something any writer should be flattered by. And I did take him seriously, calling him into account for his internalized Asian racism and transphobia. As to what Yang actually thinks, I have no idea. Can you believe it: Not a single person I wrote about in the book has reached out to me about it?
In “My Father, The Minister,” you address religion, not only as the son of a religious leader but also as a gay man. Religion continues to make headlines, whether it’s the role it’s playing in the 2024 election, the ongoing sexual abuse scandals in the various churches, or the war in Gaza. What role, if any, does religion play in your life at present?
I pay close attention to the religious life of this country. Two-thirds consider themselves religious. A lot of what I read disturbs me, nothing is surprising to me. I was heartened when, earlier this year, the United Methodist Church rescinded a ban on gay clergy. It was a rare victory because sexual difference remains to be the greatest divisive factor in American churches today. The articulation of the queer, Christian subject might be my highest priority as a writer today. (Out of all my essays, I consider “California Gothic” my greatest work.) I don’t participate in organized religion, but I still study the Bible and read queer theology, particularly the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid and Linn Tonstad, major influences of mine. I count theologians as some of my closest friends. I was actually just emailing with the writer Garth Greenwell about how 4th-century apophatic theology has parallels with queer theory today. I’m currently writing a novel about a trans-femme protagonist who finds her way to God. I’m quite serious. Sometimes, I dream that if this whole writer career doesn’t pan out, I might go to Divinity School.
You also write honestly about your drug usage in “Mean Boys.” There’s a line in the “California Gothic” essay that reads: “After psychosis, and after addiction, I knew that whether I would recover came down to a single test: Could I find grace in the ordinary?” Where are you now on that journey?
I happen to be sober now, but I have cycled through periods of limited drug use and sobriety since I finished that essay. I belong to a harm reduction community that keeps me accountable to my self-stated goals. For several years, I have had a buddy system, which differs from a sponsor relationship because it’s non-hierarchical, with a friend I’m extremely close with — we regularly check in with cravings, take stock of our weekly stressors, talk about books. If we ever call the other, we know to drop whatever we’re doing and pick up, because it’s an emergency. One night, he called me when he relapsed on meth, and I ran straight to his apartment, we flushed out the syringes, and cried in each other’s arms until the sleeping pills kicked in. Since then, he’s been sober for almost two years. Recently, I’ve been talking to him about “junk time,” which are the late-night brain rot hours when I can’t read and crave drugs the most. I need to start finding grace in the ordinariness of junk time. Thanks for the reminder.
What was involved in your decision to write about the aftermath of your sexual assault in the essay “In Arcadia Ego?”
Okay, so the first section of that essay originated as a Facebook post. People reached out with caring words, although the writing partly explored my reaching a limit with caring words. The material was so raw that I put it down for at least a few years. After I had some distance from my own assault, I picked up the essay again and suddenly realized I was bored of my own pain. It wasn’t going to teach me anything, because suffering isn’t a university. I wanted to party, so I wrote about that. Nothing about this was virtuous or wholesome or dignified. I got fucked up and screamed with my gays on the dance floor like sorority girls at a bachelorette party. In a previous era, you had a party to commemorate an occasion. My friends and I partied for no reason; the party justified itself. Life is like this, too. You never need a reason.
Was the lengthy, titular essay that closes out the book, the first essay written for the book, and therefore the inspiration?
It was the last essay I finished. In fact, we delayed the release date of the book because I couldn’t finish it. It’s my most original writing and original thinking. It’s also not for everyone.
In the “Mean Boys” essay, you write about the ultimate mean boy – mass-murderer Elliot Rodger. Did that essay begin as being about Rodger or did that come later?
This was one of the first essays I wrote where I didn’t outline it or know where it was ending up in advance. I started with an image — the Lacoste polo with the popped collar — and just kept writing. It’s meandering, because that’s how I wrote it, working through the innate turbulence of each paragraph until a door appeared into the next paragraph. I eventually found my way to Rodger. There was a time I thought I could write the essay without reading the manifesto, until I realized, c’mon, I was being chicken, I had to read the manifesto. Once I finished it, I knew I had to rewrite the entire essay.
In the “Edgelords” essay, you wrote about attending Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2015, and you are returning to the area to take part in the Miami Book Fair in November 2024. What does it mean to you to be returning to the region as the author of a book?
A friend of mine, who’s from Miami, told me that when he was young, he always looked to the Miami Book Fair as a beacon of culture. He likes to wear all white and is the only one I know who can pull off Versace sunglasses. He personally told me that my description of the bar, Kill Your Idol, was perfect. I’m excited to explore the city again. In fact, my vignette about Art Basel Miami Beach is the oldest piece of writing in the book. It’s time for a refresh.
Have you started writing or thinking about your next book project?
I’m working on a novel about degenerate ravers in Berlin. While the U.K. and Germany have novels about raving, America curiously doesn’t have one. So, I decided to write one.
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