The Blossoming of BongBong by Jessica Hagedorn

This story begins with BongBong having left his country of origin, the Philippines, for the U.S. to try to retain his sanity. The reader is introduced to his best friend Frisquito, who is not the most normal person in the world. Frisquito is heavily involved in drugs having taken LSD over 50 times as well as having taken large quantities of peyote, cocaine and heroin at the tender age of 26. Frisquito tell BongBong, "There is nothing wrong with being crazy. The thing to do is to get comfortable with it" (Hagedorn, pg.2857).

Frisquito sees nothing wrong or unusual with BongBong's struggle with being, or going, crazy. The author spends a lot of time describing the personalities, sex lives and even manner of dress of the characters to give you a more complete idea of how unusual they are. It is interesting how the wife of the mayor is dubbed a "trendsetter" for having Frisquito to paint her three pornographic portraits, but Frisquito and BongBong are considered to be more than eccentric. It causes the reader to wonder whether that difference is due to the characters status or their mental state over time.

The author also follows the thoughts of BongBong through his relationships with his sister Carmen, her husband Pochoy and his pseudo-lover Charmaine along with her same-sex lover Colelia. She also shows the degeneration of BongBong's mental state through his letters to his friend Frisquito, which go unanswered throughout the tale. BongBong also begins to have progressively odder and more frequent "visions" or hallucinations. The author never informs the reader as to how much of these incidents are real and how much are imagined. This technique further enhances the readers' ability to imagine what BongBong is going through and how confusing his life must be for him as well.