Swish: A Mini Review

We are still processing all of our pictures from our vacation in Mexico, picking the best pics and getting our water camera films developed, so while I want to share all sorts of cool and interesting information with everyone, I am going to have to wait for the time being. However, even without our fantastic pictures I can still give you a run down of something I did on vacation: I read Joel Derfner's Swish.

Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever And What Ended Up Happening Instead is a series of personal essays by Joel Derfner exploring some of the more stereotyped aspects of gay life. In other words, he set out to do some things that were so obviously gay so that he could discover what it meant to be gay in the process; things like Go-Go Dancing, going to Gay Summer Camp, becoming an Aerobics Instructor, attending an Exodus (international "ex-gay" organization) summit, and Knitting. Derfner jumps into all of these activities head first to experience them and comes out of each with an interesting story to tell.

Considering that I love essay style books, and that I love over-the-top gayness in my books as well, I was a bit surprised at what I found in Swish. Parts of this self-revealing tale is hilarious, other parts are sweet and endearing, and still others managed to find a way to alienate this reader. In general, I enjoyed the first couple chapters, pulled through with some encouragement, then landed on the last chapter just in time for me to not hate the book for deceiving me.

Initially, I sympathized with Derfner's description of himself: Neurotic, self-defacing, stuck on mishaps he made in the past. I think we're all a little like Derfner at times, remembering the time we made that completely inappropriate comment and feeling shame over it even years later or doubting ourselves so much we're frozen in action. When you get to the middle chapters though, particularly when he talks about his musical theater experience, you see a different side of Derfner's character: his elitism and contempt for those he sees as less than. If I had to suffer through one more mention of how he went to Harvard and that made him that much better than everyone else around him, I think I would have thrown the book out the train door. Thankfully, he redeems himself when he goes to the Exodus conference (oddly enough) and we see him learn an interesting lesson in humility and humanity.

Derfner's Swish is a very well written narrative. He'll point out to you multiple times throughout the book just how good of a writer he is and that anyone that misspells or uses incorrect grammar is worthy of criticism, which irked me. Truthfully, I agree with the notion that grammar is important. However, it is not the cornerstone of a person's worth. It's possible I hold this belief because I know if he ever read this blog or even this post, he would immediately shriek with distaste regarding my particular usage of the English language. However, knowing that much about his personality from a short 250-page collection does say a lot about how well he is able to convey himself and his message and his ability to craft a perfect sentence, paragraph and story.

That said, I enjoyed Swish overall. Although the middle section of the book dragged a bit much for me, it's possible it did so because I was expecting witty phrases and fun stories throughout but was instead met with hard tales of life. As a sum, I would recommend the book. It's mostly light reading which also finds a way to provide some depth in the process. Was it a great choice for a beach read? Possibly not. That's more Michael Thomas Ford's arena. But Swish certainly was a good read.