Happily morphing

The cover has captivated me for months and the reviews were good enough that I was compelled to buy “Look who’s Morphing” by Tom Cho last week. I read it almost immediately.

Before I do my customary bagging, let me say that it was very fresh, silly and whimsical (and contained an awful lot of morph), and I didn’t detect the smear of dull inner-suburban sameness that I often sense in Aussie books. The feeling that someone in the tram next to me with slightly more imagination and willpower had managed to grit it out and produce a collection of tales.

Now for the downside. How many short stories can you begin with the words “Auntie Wei was always doing crazy things” before it becomes tiresome. Only David Sedaris is funny enough to pull this off year after year, and by halfway I was sighing a little. The continual pop-culture references were a bit alienating to me, not having watched Dirty Dancing, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Transformers enough to find references to them cute or endearing.

Still, you’d have to be a real Myki-hating, cheerless misanthrope to not find something to like in these little stories about identity and transformation. And the absolutely awesome Cock Rock story was the perfect ending – I won’t spoil it for you, but it was extremely and unexpectedly erotic. 4 stars.