Matt Ortile: The Groom Will Keep His Name

Matt Ortile discusses his new book,
The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance
.
Praise for The Groom Will Keep His Name
Matt Ortile's ardent and precocious collection sets the page aflame with its explosive mixture of passion and politics, cultural analysis and self-examination. Cruising through virtual and nocturnal circuits, Ortile riffs like a guitar savant on what it means to be a young wanderer in the city today with astute carnality and endearing candor.
The Groom Will Keep His Name
is a daring brown and queer manifesto that proclaims to everyone making our way in the world: never bow to the false gods of whiteness and normalcy.—
Meredith Talusan, author of
Fairest
About The Groom Will Keep His Name
A riotous collection of "witty and captivating" (
Bitch Magazine
) essays by a gay Filipino immigrant in America learning that everything is about sex--and sex is about power
When Matt Ortile moved from Manila to Las Vegas, the locals couldn't pronounce his name. Harassed as a kid for his brown skin, accent, and femininity, he believed he could belong in America by marrying a white man and shedding his Filipino identity. This was the first myth he told himself.
The Groom Will Keep His Name
explores the various tales Ortile spun about what it means to be a Vassar Girl, an American Boy, and a Filipino immigrant in New York looking to build a home.
As we meet and mate, we tell stories about ourselves, revealing not just who we are, but who we want to be. Ortile recounts the relationships and whateverships that pushed him to confront his notions of sex, power, and the model minority myth. Whether swiping on Grindr, analyzing DMs, or cruising steam rooms, Ortile brings us on his journey toward radical self-love with intelligence, wit, and his heart on his sleeve.