SameSame.com.au ~ Inside Out Australia

Tom Cho, I’m mildly disappointed to discover, is not a 6-story tall cock-rock god, nor is he a penguin Muppet, and Tom’s wild, playful collection of short stories in Look Who’s Morphing are most definitely not autobiographical.

When I first chat to Tom, he tells me he’s lost, driving through an unfamiliar city and I’ve called him on the phone he’s using to navigate, but little in Tom’s voice belies his predicament. While some of us might curtly say goodbye and hang-up, Tom apologises profusely, and his soft tone and very definite choice of words indicate he’s in control of the situation. When he assures me he’ll call me back, I begin to realise that Tom is a lot more subdued than the erratic personas I’ve come to associate with him from his gender-bending, outlandish short stories.

On a publicity tour that saw launches in a few Australian cities, gallery talks and writer’s festival jaunts, I catch Tom between Melbourne and Perth – and this time, I make sure he’s not driving.

“Both the Melbourne and Sydney launches were great. In Melbourne we broke the record for most books sold at the store’s launches. The previous record holder was Christos Tsiolkas for Loaded,” says Tom with obvious excitement. Is it possible that there’s a similarity in the trajectory of both artists’ careers? But Tom would be the first to admit that there’s still a little while before he reaches similarly great heights. While Tsiolkas may have published several books and won a raft of awards for his latest literary offering, Cho’s Look Who’s Morphing was nine years in the making.

“It was a very long time…there were probably about 20 extra stories that didn’t make it in, for whatever reason,” says Cho of the book that formed the creative component of his PhD in professional writing at Melbourne’s Deakin University. “I only submitted my thesis a few weeks ago, in fact, so I’m still under examination.”

If you hadn’t read the book and started chatting to Tom about it, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a very serious affair. Although, one look at the cover suggests that while the book might form a very important part of Tom’s studies and professional career, the content itself is a little wilder in scope. The Look Who’s Morphing cover sees Tom sporting a gash with lurid pink blood seeping out of the wound – it seems Tom went into battle with the book’s themes, had fun along the way, and came out the other end with an amazing head of hair in tact – well, almost. “I was growing [my hair] for the cover shoot. But it was a race against time, we had to get the stylist to add a little bit of a hair piece,” says Tom of the Fonz style ‘do’.

So while the book’s beginnings as a university work might appear very serious, Tom insists that the final product and his own philosophies are very open-ended. From leather men invading the storyline of Dirty Dancing, to a six-storey tall cock-rock Godzilla creature that woos women in Japan, Tom says what ties his stories together is the transformation of identity.

“In terms of subject matter, to some extent, the gloves were off… it has such an open ended treatment of the theme of identity, that you can read the book, and read it as a story of migration, or gender transition, or coming out, or all of these, or none of these.” And it appears that some reviewers of the book were very keen to take the craziness of Tom’s stories and pin them down very seriously. Citing a Sydney Morning Herald review that he says he at first found ‘bruising,’ Tom thinks part of the beauty of the book is its “utter queerness” and that there’s nothing of its kind out there, in straight or gay literature – and maybe the reviewer just missed the point, but it’s okay.

“If people have a sense of adventure and a sense of humour, they should enjoy the book,” says Cho, emphasising that pinning the book as just Asian, or queer, or about his own trans-identity, is selling the book, and the reader short.

Tom, for one, doesn’t appear a fan of selling himself and his options short. Not pigeon-holing himself as just an author, maybe Tsiolkas’ trajectory isn’t where this queer artist sees himself heading. Prior to, and during, the writing of his recent book, Cho was well known for organising performances in Melbourne of spoken word and karaoke, called ‘Hello Kitty.’

“As you can tell form the book, I’ve always enjoyed mixing genres. It mixes all kinds of genres: science fiction, horror, romantic comedy. So whatever performance adventures might lie in my future, I’m sure it will be an interesting blend of genres.” ‘Hello Kitty’ saw another Asian-Australian artist, photographer and former Same Same 25’er, William Yang, performing spoken word and then a heart felt rendition of I Still Call Australia Home.

So whether Tom is tackling racism, gender, or popular culture, it seems he will do so in his very own, unique style. “I have a bit of a fear of involuntary plagiarism. So I tend to live in a bit of bubble. Sometimes I don’t allow myself access to work that might be of most interest to me…but I would say someone like Woody Allen would be one of my biggest influences.”

At the end of our chat Tom says he’s floating the idea of a solo show, and that he’s always been interested in hip-hop. I take a moment and picture this 5-foot something Chinese-Australian guy, mashing hip-hop’s hyper-masculine style with some other, as yet to be decided, genre and tell him I’d go and see that for sure.

Tom Cho’s top five reads:
1.Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love – Kate William
2. Sixty Stories – Donald Barthelme
3. Tom of Finland: The Art of Pleasure – Tom of Finland
4. Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays – Steve Martin
5. Amazing Fantasy #15 – Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby

Tom Cho’s Look Who’s Morphing is out now through Giramondo Publishing.

Check out more of Tom’s writing here.

Photo: Owen Leong.