Author Tenorio weaves Pinoy history anecdotes into his fiction

San Francisco-based short story writer Lysley Tenorio credits his success as a writer to his upbringing as a full-blooded Filipino raised in America. In an email to GMA News Online, Tenorio said his parents made an effort to keep Filipino family traditions alive even as they encouraged him to embrace the culture of his new homeland. Tenorio, whose parents are both from Olongapo City, migrated to the US with his family when he was only seven months old. He has visited the Philippines only once, in 2000, and what he remembers from the trip was a sign at the airport that said: “No well wishers beyond this point.” That memory became part of his short story “Help.” Returning after 13 years, Tenorio will be giving a talk and signing copies of his book at the National Book Store in Glorietta 1 on February 9 at 4:00 p.m. Zany characters “Whether it was a conscious effort on their part or not, my parents gave me tremendous freedom when I was growing up. I wouldn’t have become a writer without it,” Tenorio said. “We listened to and obeyed our parents. Older siblings cared for younger siblings. Our food was culturally Filipino. But I also felt very American growing up, which I got from school, movies, and TV, so that culture integrated itself into our home as well,” said Tenorio, an associate professor at Saint Mary’s College in California. These pop culture influences, along with anecdotes from Philippine history, have made their way into Tenorio’s stories, resulting in characters that one US publication has described as “zany, witty, and beautifully drawn.” His stories, which have been published in “The Atlantic,” “Ploughshares,” “The Chicago Times,” and “Manoa,” among others, are replete with strange, isolated characters: the half-Filipino comic book geek with one brown eye and one black eye, who believes he has superpowers, or the security guard, an Imelda Marcos fanatic, who enlists his nephews to ambush the Beatles after they refuse to give the first lady a private concert. Tenorio said he finds these characters “more interesting to write about than those at home in the mainstream.” Writing influences Aside from pop culture and Philippine history, and perhaps more than writing idols like Kazuo Ishiguro, Chang-Rae Lee, and Bharati Mukherjee, Tenorio’s own mother has been most influential to him. “My mother, perhaps more than anyone I know, embodies the gutsiness, riskiness, and tenacity that all my characters possess,” said Tenorio, who received the Whiting Writers’ Award for emerging fiction writers in 2008. When Tenorio’s first book Monstress was published, his mother was “incredibly happy and extremely supportive,” never mind that she had never read it. “We never really discussed the book in terms of process or subject matter. All she knew was that I worked hard on it for a very long time, and that it finally made it into the world,” Tenorio said. Tough sell Getting published did not come easily for Tenorio, who has been awarded numerous fellowships, including the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, as well as writing grants from University of Wisconsin, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the National Endowment for the Arts. “In America, short story collections are a tough sell to major publishing houses, so while many editors liked the work, they couldn’t commit to a collection,” Tenorio explained. He was “relieved, thrilled, and anxious, all at the same time” when he finally landed a publishing deal with Ecco. A HarperCollins imprint, Ecco has published best-selling authors like Tom Robbins, Amy Tan, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as food critic Anthony Bourdain. - VVP/YA, GMA News