Sometimes, in order to make sense of a world that is monstrous, bloody, and horrific, people turn to the equally monstrous, bloody, and horrific. In Dinner on Monster Island, Tania De Rozario presents a collection of essays that are both a precise exploration of insightful art theory and an unpacking of intense personal history. De Rozario (And the Walls Come Crumbling Down) discusses her years growing up in Singapore as a queer, brown, fat girl and how she felt alienated by her family, her community, and the country at large. Using horror films, she launches into an emotional reckoning of feeling monstrous and how she saw herself mirrored in some of the scariest films in film history, including Carrie, The Witch, and The Exorcist.
When she was 12 years old, De Rozario was exorcised for being gay. It was emotionally violent, fervent and impassioned, and the first time she felt like she could take power away from those that wanted to control her. "Do you understand that you are a sinner? You speak one word: Yes. What you keep to yourself is the fact that you don't care. You are a sinner. And you don't care." It would take her years to put words to that feeling, when she saw Robert Eggers's film The Witch, in which the main character steps into her monstrous power and decides to live "deliciously" by carrying her truth on a journey only she can go on. This connection, and Tania's luscious and audacious writing, dares readers to go on their own journey. --Dominic Charles Howarth, book manager, Book + Bottle