Queer Chinese American writer Geoffrey Mak takes the personal essay to new, and sometimes unsettling, heights, in his book “Mean Boys: A Personal History” (Bloomsbury, 2024). Described as a “memoir-in-essays,” Mak, the gay son of an evangelical minister, takes readers on his volatile and visceral personal journey, which includes the techno clubs of Berlin, various illicit substances, his sexual assault, and ultimately an examination of mass-murderer Elliot Rodger. Mak generously made time for an interview in advance of his November appearance at the Miami Book Fair.
BLADE: In the author’s note for your book “Mean Boys: A Personal History,” you said, “I wrote most of these essays for the Internet,” and that awareness of your readership extended to “what they wanted to hear, and what they were wearing.” Is that still your target audience or were you looking to expand it with the book?
GEOFFREY MAK: If I could go back in time and inspire my 26-year-old self to keep writing, I would say, “Babe, in 10 years, you’ll get everything you’ve ever dreamed of, just online-only.” I still see the natural habitat of the personal essay; yet the internet has a tendency for fragmentation and bubbles. When I decided to write a book at a mainstream press, I thought a lot about how a book—unlike a painting—is a mass-produced object, which makes it a more democratic medium, almost humble. I thought a lot about the opportunity to reach readers in Idaho or Oregon or Arkansas, and, in fact, I now get emails or Instagram DMs from readers in all those states. I wanted to explore universal themes that anyone can relate to, such as the wages of status in a high school cafeteria, or the process of forgiving one’s own father.
BLADE: You also mentioned James Baldwin and Joan Didion, as well as Ed White, Hilton Als, and Alan Hollinghurst, among others. How important are these writers to you in your work?
MAK: I love that you called him Ed, because he is Ed. Each of those writers gave me something
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