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, the narrator tries to convince himself that it transcends its commercial nature, but he is quickly forced into a hard look at the connections between desire and exploitation, personal and national identity. Lawrence Chua vividly combines Southeast Asia's troubled history with evocations of its modern face - its polyglot culture, its colonial past, the cool futurism of its skyscrapers and its sex industry. Written in hard-bitten, dazzling prose, Gold by the Inch is a stunning debut.
What Some Reviewers and Writers Have Said about This Book "Set in present-day, anything-goes Bangkok, LawrenceChua's mean, lean Gold by the Inch unfolds in a rush of edgy, brilliant images and and dances on the dark side of love, loss, sexual passion, cultural conflict, and hard commerce." -- Jessica Hagedorn
"Chua's searing, lushly written first novel stylishly explores the shifting boundaries between sex and commerce, East and West, culture and identity. . . . Thanks to Chua's humidly erotic, imagistic prose, the narrator's eventual awakening is almost as provocative as Bangkok's tawdry lures." -- Entertainment Weekly
"[M]ean in rhythm, urgent in imagery. . . . [A] narrative that's as unpredictable as it is engaging. . . . [H]is prose soars; so do his stories." -- Seattle Weekly
"[S]ensuous, often feverish, studded with vivid images. . . . A clever challenge to Marguerite Duras's The Lover. . . Chua updates the time-honored themes of empire and eroticism." -- Publishers Weekly
"Like the narrator in The Lover, Chua ferries us on an intimate journey and I had absolute trust in his savvy compass. There is a reckless truth that Chua keeps a hard eye on and I learned that place and position is a power we cannot escape, only navigate. Love and fear live side by side in this bold, beautiful book and Chua's muscular prose, his seductive vision and the vigor in his compassion took my breath away." -- Fae Myenne Ng
"In his first novel, Lawrence Chua demonstrates a keen eye and even sharper ear for the exigencies of life. With dead-pan humour and lightness of touch, this book makes us aware of everything we haven't seen. It also makes Mr. Chua a very necessary kind of author: a reporter on the edge." -- Hilton Als
