The Foley Artist: Stories, Ricco Villanueva Siasoco

Description

The Foley Artist: Stories
Paperback – September 29, 2019
by Ricco Villanueva Siasoco (Author)

Honorable Mention for the 2021 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement, The Foley Artist marks the arrival of Ricco Villanueva Siasoco as a bold, inventive, and deeply compassionate storyteller. Described by Alexander Chee as “a collection like a circus of daredevils,” this debut offers nine unforgettable stories that explore the fractured, funny, painful, and tender landscapes of the Filipino diaspora in America.

Siasoco’s characters navigate intimate fault lines—between cultures, between identities, between who they are and who they long to be. A straight woman travels to coastal Maine to attend her ex-boyfriend’s same-sex wedding, confronting memory and desire. A college-bound teenager reconnects with his deaf uncle in Manila, discovering new dimensions of family and history. At the Iowa State Fair, Asian American drag queens wage a fierce and fabulous battle. And in the title story, a seventy-nine-year-old Foley artist painstakingly recreates the sounds of life, only to find himself unable to save his own.

The collection moves seamlessly between the absurd and the achingly real, illuminating how foreignness, silence, and longing embed themselves in daily life. With a voice at once daring and deeply humane, Siasoco brings Filipino American lives—and queer lives—into sharp and resonant focus, capturing their complexity with humor, heart, and a stunning sense of possibility.

A vibrant, affecting debut, The Foley Artist expands the map of Asian American fiction and announces Siasoco as a writer of remarkable range and insight.