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Holistic Guidance - Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever
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List Price: $23.95
Our Price: $16.29
Your Save: $ 7.66 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Broadway
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.7662092
EAN: 9780767924306
ISBN: 0767924304
Label: Broadway
Manufacturer: Broadway
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2008-05-13
Publisher: Broadway
Release Date: 2008-05-13
Studio: Broadway
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Editorial Reviews:
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Joel Derfner is gayer than you.
Don’t feel too bad about it, though, because he has made being gayer than you his life’s work. At summer day camp, when he was six, Derfner tried to sign up for needlepoint and flower arranging, but the camp counselors wouldn’t let him, because, they said, those activities were for girls only. Derfner, just to be contrary, embarked that very day on a solemn and sacred quest: to become the gayest person ever. Along the way he has become a fierce knitter, an even fiercer musical theater composer, and so totally the fiercest step aerobics instructor (just ask him—he’ll tell you himself).
In Swish, Derfner takes his readers on a flamboyant adventure along the glitter-strewn road from fabulous to divine. Whether he’s confronting the demons of his past at a GLBT summer camp, using the Internet to “meet” men—many, many men—or plunging headfirst (and nearly naked) into the shady world of go-go dancing, he reveals himself with every gayer-than-thou flourish to be not just a stylish explorer but also a fearless one. So fearless, in fact, that when he sneaks into a conference for people who want to cure themselves of their homosexuality, he turns the experience into one of the most fascinating, deeply moving chapters of the book. Derfner, like King Arthur, Christopher Columbus, and Indiana Jones—but with a better haircut and a much deeper commitment to fad diets—is a hero destined for legend.
Written with wicked humor and keen insight, Swish is at once a hilarious look at contemporary ideas about gay culture and a poignant exploration of identity that will speak to all readers—gay, straight, and in between.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: A book for everybody
Comment: I read a review of "Swish" and it sounded intriguing, so I picked it up even though, as a heterosexual woman, I'm well aware that I'm not the target audience for the book. And you know what? I found myself identifying with Joel anyway. He's neurotic, an outsider -- and also manages to be completely hilarious and insightful in a way most of us can only dream about. Reading "Swish" is like spending a few hours in the company of a fascinating and funny person, and if you're straight, even if you have gay friends and/or relatives, you're likely to come away with a better understanding of what it means to be a gay man in 2008.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, Insightful and Courageous
Comment: There are two basic types of reviews in this world, the;
'Oh my God, you should have seen/read the amazing characterization/acting/cinematography/special effects... you simply must go see/read this book/movie/play/production!' Yay!!!
Or... the;
'I have a rather large literary stick up my yahoo and am therefore qualified to relate all the technical achievements and defects of said book/movie/production... yadda, yadda, yadda.'
For myself...
In the WaHoo! Department... let me just say two things. I read the book cover to cover.... and I frequently had to hold a pillow over my face so that my out-of-control laughter would not wake anyone else in the house.
I am a gay man and I do live, to a certain degree, within the world that Joel Derfner describes. So I suppose that biases me a tad. But make no mistake, the humor is born, not from the triteness of the gay experience, but out of one man's incredibly resourceful coping mechanisms while living with multiple personality issues, like OCD, a pathological need to be accepted and fear of ever - under any circumstances - offending anyone... about anything. In other words... this is true courage in action.
Technically speaking... as a fellow author; all I could think after finishing each and every paragraph, was how I had to go back and rework my own writing. (ever damn word and sentence) My Derfner is a literary artisan who uses words with efficiency, precision and aplomb.
If all of that is a little too 'high brow' and you require a perspective a tad more mundane. Think of the character 'Jack' from TV's 'Will and Grace', only with a brain and something insightful to say.
The highest praise I can think of after reading this book; "I wish Joel Derfner was a personal friend of mine."
Go, Read... you won't be disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Well-written (and often funny) memoirs lack a real focus
Comment: Having not read the author's "Gay Haiku", but having heard good things about it, I was curious about this follow-up book, which I assumed would be a humorous look at the stereotypes and idiosyncrasies that make our "gaydar" ping off the scale.
Not really a memoir or a novel, "Swish..." is more of a series of related essays on various topics and experiences. The first half of the book more than met my expectations, providing some hysterically funny memoirs of the author's time at a gay adult summer camp, working as a go-go boy, his hobby of knitting, joining a gay cheerleader club, and, of course, dating and sex. The tone changes noticeably after that, as if an inner voice told him to "get serious", and a chapter on working in musical theatre somehow becomes a treatise on the treatment of gay artists in concentration camps during the Holocaust, during which the mention of a painting of the moon results in a tangent into the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. Huh? I ended that chapter no longer laughing, and somewhat disoriented. The next section deals with the author's "undercover" attendance at a conference of Exodus, the Christian-based "ex-gay" movement, in which he eventually finds himself identifying with some of the members, which I found to be rather odd a revelation for a book about "the gayest person ever!"
Overall, the book is very well written, funny (first half) and occasionally touching (second half), but the lack of focus in his storytelling (and tangents into other subjects on which he had no new perspective justifying the detour) feels like carrying on a conversation with someone who has ADD. Not my cup of java, but others may like it better. I'll give it four stars out of five.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cause to Rejoice
Comment: Derfner, Joel. "Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever", Broadway Books, 2008.
Cause to Rejoice
Amos Lassen
When I first read about Joel Derfner's "Swish", I knew it would rank high on my list of favorite books and I am happy to say that I was correct. My copy came today and Sophie (my Jack Russell) and I sat down, ready to enjoy every line. (I am pretty sure the dog thinks I lost it as I laughed from cover to cover). Here is a book that tells it like it is and I am afraid that if I do not start reading it again that I might suffer from "Oh my God, I just finished a good book syndrome" and that depression might follow.
"Swish" is not only funny; it is very intelligent as well as somewhat raunchy. Derfner is a good Jewish boy like myself and I saw so much of my own life in the book that I, at times, felt as if I was reading my own memoir and not his. The book is a collection of essays dealing with all aspects of gay life from casual dating and sex to camp to cheerleading to musical theater. Derfner takes a close look at gay life and does so with a satire that has the reader laughing out loud. The book is honest and well written and I may get cussed out for saying this but it does for the 2000's what Larry Kramer did for the 60's and 70's in "Faggots". It's a book about the way we live and the way we love.
Not many books hit me the way "Swish" does because not many people are willing to tell it as it is. I knew I was in for a fun ride when I read Derfner's forward. However as I read further I found a great deal of truth especially as the author explores gay identity. This is a book by a gay men about a gay man and written for gay men and everyone else. "Swish" is a book that you will want your straight friends to read so they can understand you better. But be careful--if you lend it to your gay friends, you may not get it back. I have another copy on the way, just in case.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hoop-hoop-hooray!
Comment: This memoir is truly an occasion to be savored--complete with the after-good-book letdown and weeks-long depression. His bawdy, and extremely intelligent humor makes his essay collection downright delightful--so much so that I read the book with the jacket prominently displayed, just on top of my nose, while I rode the subway. And Nabokov and myself aside, I know no one with such a command for beautiful words that have unjustly fallen out of usage!
If the humor's not enough for you, Joel's book is bursting with profound insights that explore the vagaries of being a gay man today, the universal weirdness of relationships and dating, and the raw--and enlivening--terrain of being an artist. Joel is truly a literary soulmate, and SWISH is a book I will come back to and read for years to come.
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