Platinum Bible of the Public Toilet

December 18, 2023
Filmmaker and novelist Cui makes his English-language debut with a buoyant collection of queer coming-of-age stories. In “Uncle’s Elegant Life,” the young narrator idolizes his androgynous uncle, while “Intrigue Like Fireworks” finds a naive teenager’s world rocked when he learns about ejaculation. Cui’s extensive work as a filmmaker is reflected in the form of his fiction, which unspools in short, numbered paragraphs like quick cuts. “Men Are Containers” centers on a group of men who scheme to overthrow rigid ideas of attraction. The title story exuberantly follows the wide-ranging passions of Guigui, a TV host dedicated to showcasing the role of public toilets in international politics, literature, economics, and art. The volume’s abundant supplementary material includes meticulous footnotes, a lengthy interview with the author, and an appendix that illustrates the diversity of his artistic output. Throughout, Cui’s impulses to provoke the forces that repress sexuality and uphold literary conventions are grounded in joie de vivre. Reminiscent of the writings of Pier Paolo Pasolini, this is an indelible portrait of an artist.