The Gangster of Love

“The Gangster of Love is elegant and smart, deftly capturing the pain of leaving a country behind and the struggle to adapt to a new one.” —The New York Times Book Review

From celebrated novelist Jessica Hagedorn, an electrifying novel about a Filipino-American family navigating a culture of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll  

Rocky Rivera arrives in the U.S. from the Philippines the year that Jimi Hendrix dies. So begins a blazing coming-of-age story suffused with the tensions of immigration that finds Rocky moving from the counterculture of 1960s San Francisco to the extravagant 1980s Manhattan music scene.

The Gangster of Love tells the story of the Rivera family as they make their new life in the States, all the while haunted by the memory of the father and the homeland they left behind. Among its members are Rocky's haughty mother, who has impulsively left her father; Voltaire, her brother, prone to heavy depression and odd friendships with strangers; and Rocky herself, unsure about sex and worshipful of her boyfriend, the guitar-playing Elvis Chang, who must learn to accept reality amidst the myths and lures of American success and idolatry.Praise for The Gangster of Love:

“Playful, inventive . . . Asks serious questions about family, exile, identity, about the problems of learning to operate in another language.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Hagedorn paints a lively portrait that in many ways is impressionistic . . . engrossing, unsentimental, and quite funny.” —The Washington Post
 
“The Gangster of Love is more about journeys than destinations, and Hagedorn’s steamy prose makes you happy to be along for the ride.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“This novel of Manila-meets-the-underground-American hip is high energy and moves full-speed ahead.” —New York Post
 
“One of the most auspicious literary novels about the rock scene since Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street.” —The Boston Globe
 
“Engrossing . . . marked by a stunning lyrical elegance.” —Spin Jessica Hagedorn is the author of the novels Dogeaters and The Gangster of Love, Dream Jungle, and a collection of poetry and short fiction, Danger and Beauty.