Gold by the Inch

by Lawrence Chua

Book Overview

Called "striking" by The New York Times Book Review, Gold by the Inch is the story of a young New Yorker of Asian descent who has returned to the country of his birth following a disastrous relationship and his father's death. In a Bangkok drunk on the nation's financial miracle - and high on an assortment of other things - the narrator meets Thong, a young, beautiful male hustler who works at a nightclub. As his romantic obsession with Thong grows,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802136494
• ISBN13: 9780802136497
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Mesmerizing Flights of Prose

One thing that Chua does exceedingly well is stylizing. Nevermind the story (if it were a bit more connected, I'd give him 5 stars). He is brassy, he is vulnerable. He is vulgar, he is tender. This is the sort of book that requires much of its readers. Those who take it at face value will hate it (as some of the reviewers above have). The narrator may not be likeable, but then again there is a reason why the author made him that way. Those who prefer to be spoonfed should turn to Stephen King or Higgins or Danielle Steel. I like this book because it has guts. It'll make you wince and gag and chew your lips to shred. Chua has the power of a very keen poet. Highly recommended to writers or those with a deep appreciation for prose.

One of the two best of 1999!

An extraordinary and compelling novel, especially in its bold and simple language, its force; GOLD BY THE INCH is one of the two best books I've read this year, along with Colm Toibin's THE STORY OF THE NIGHT!

Wine turned blood, fantasy made real in brown flesh.

"Its those vines. They always bring you back to the forest" (59). This book is the wine turned blood, fantasy made real in flesh. Vulgar. Hard. My ever-shifting diasporan world contextualized through Lawrence's haunting precision of an eye: Plaridel, Nueva York, Daly City, Maui. Violent Empowerment. Colonial Violence. History's infinite expanse recycled into stolen tongues, brownlands, coca leaves. Queens, prostitues and manlovers are humanized. Borderless maps drawn with history's desires. Lawrence constructs a blueprint for my kind's existence by narrating our real encounters. He is an architect of souls. I too am in love with his badboy, Thong. Thong can devour my dreams anytime. Lawrence is my twin. The only difference is he writes in pages, i live in them. The language of the book has got this beat. It brings me back to the ghetto lifestyle, WUTANG slicing their tracks and Nas verse-writing. Utang means debt where am from. Props. My newyorkcity summer feels like home as I pull the book away from my face. Browner!

The most Forward Looking Book of the Year

Chua's novel has garnared mixed critical reception in large part because he succeeds so boldly in inventing a new literary language. The novel's experience hinges on the interplay between it's artfully wrought chapters, the space between words as important as the words themselves. Like Toni Morrison did with Beloved, Chua not only challenges the legitimacy of master narratives, his stylistic choices also find a way to write past them. A challenging and unsettling read that remains fully engaging. Chua is a writer to watch closely.

A bequiling illusion

Mr. Chua's novel is both compelling and jarring. One thread of the narrative is a coy, enticing peek into the underbelly of Thailand's sexual trade that invites as it sickens. Simultaneously, another thread accusingly points out the rape of the country and its people by both Western invasion and internal greed. The narrator's native land is not what he wants it to be, nor can it ever be. As he bitterly discovers -- aiming his distaste at his prostituted homeland and, through manipulations of narrative structure, his prostituted self -- one can never go home. One can, however, discover some rather ugly truths about oneself on the trip. Written in an clipped, disturbing style, Chua's vivid images of the world the narrator finds abroad are haunting and beautiful, falling easily across the pages like shiny marbles one wants to gather together but finds recklessly spilling onto the floor. Some reviewers have complained that the novel is not satisfying enough in reaching its ambitions, leaving readers wanting more. But I feel being intentionally deprived in this sense only underlines Chua's point: the culture of purchased sex and plentiful drugs is only a limited, temporary satisfaction for a person/nation being lead into self-destruction while searching in vain for lost foundations.