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A review by thepetitepunk
Letters to Montgomery Clift by Noel Alumit
5.0
It's truly a shame that Letters to Montgomery Clift has so few reviews/ratings on Goodreads. Although this book was published nearly two decades ago, I bought it in 2017 simply because I wanted to read a book with a queer Filipino narrator. I finally read it in 2020 for Asian Heritage Month (and as someone who is half-Filipino, I don't frequently see Filipino characters/authors without actively looking for them).
Letters to Montgomery Clift follows Bong Bong, a boy born in the Philippines who is sent to live with his bitter, abusive aunt in the United States after his parents are attacked by the Marcos regime. While with Auntie Yuna, Bong watches movies starring the actor Montgomery Clift. Looking up to one of the characters Mr. Clift plays, Bong decides to take on Auntie Yuna's practice of writing letters to the dead and writes letters to Montgomery Clift. Later, a foster family takes in Bong Bong, who now goes by Bob. While living with the Arangan family, Bob continues writing his letters, and even sees, touches, and forms a relationship with Montgomery Clift. Although Bob's main priority is to find out what happened to his parents, as expressed in his letters, Bob deals with a variety of obstacles and self-discoveries as the years go on.
Letters to Montgomery Clift certainly is not a long book, but it covers so much. There is a lot of heavy topics to process here, including child abuse, politics, graphic torture, kidnapping, disappearing persons, mental illness, self harm, sexuality, immigration, and teen pregnancy, to name a few. But if this is something you can stomach, I highly recommend this book. Noël Alumit fits so many things in so few pages, but it works so well. There's pain, suffering, confusion, anger, and violence, but there's just enough hope and love by the end that makes this read worthwhile.
I will say though, this book is definitely not perfect. The writing style was choppy and unimpressive; there was also quite a few run on sentences that I really did not appreciate. I wish some topics were further elaborated on, but again, there was a lot going on. Also, this book covers a span of multiple years of Bong/Bob's life, but I didn't think there was a smooth enough transition to indicate passage of time. I sometimes had to go back and read the end of a chapter because I'd get confused on how much time has passed.
Regardless, this is a story that needs to be heard. It's not often that a gay Filipino immigrant is the center of a novel and it's not often that I find a book that I immediately mark as a favorite. This one is quite special.
Letters to Montgomery Clift follows Bong Bong, a boy born in the Philippines who is sent to live with his bitter, abusive aunt in the United States after his parents are attacked by the Marcos regime. While with Auntie Yuna, Bong watches movies starring the actor Montgomery Clift. Looking up to one of the characters Mr. Clift plays, Bong decides to take on Auntie Yuna's practice of writing letters to the dead and writes letters to Montgomery Clift. Later, a foster family takes in Bong Bong, who now goes by Bob. While living with the Arangan family, Bob continues writing his letters, and even sees, touches, and forms a relationship with Montgomery Clift. Although Bob's main priority is to find out what happened to his parents, as expressed in his letters, Bob deals with a variety of obstacles and self-discoveries as the years go on.
Letters to Montgomery Clift certainly is not a long book, but it covers so much. There is a lot of heavy topics to process here, including child abuse, politics, graphic torture, kidnapping, disappearing persons, mental illness, self harm, sexuality, immigration, and teen pregnancy, to name a few. But if this is something you can stomach, I highly recommend this book. Noël Alumit fits so many things in so few pages, but it works so well. There's pain, suffering, confusion, anger, and violence, but there's just enough hope and love by the end that makes this read worthwhile.
I will say though, this book is definitely not perfect. The writing style was choppy and unimpressive; there was also quite a few run on sentences that I really did not appreciate. I wish some topics were further elaborated on, but again, there was a lot going on. Also, this book covers a span of multiple years of Bong/Bob's life, but I didn't think there was a smooth enough transition to indicate passage of time. I sometimes had to go back and read the end of a chapter because I'd get confused on how much time has passed.
Regardless, this is a story that needs to be heard. It's not often that a gay Filipino immigrant is the center of a novel and it's not often that I find a book that I immediately mark as a favorite. This one is quite special.