Music Heard in Hi-Fi: New Fictions by Noel Alumit
Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories is the third book by bestselling author Noel Alumit. This moving collection of short stories explores the lives of those straddling the United States and the Philippines. These memorable characters are both tender and illuminating: a grief-stricken man returns to a country that only knew him as a woman, an aspiring Broadway star is haunted by her past, a husband rebuilds a life after his wife leaves him, and a boy testifies against the man who abused him. Brave and thoughtful, these stories delve into the most universal of themes—family, community, love and understanding.
Noel Alumit’s graceful, understated stories resonate long after one is done reading them. Each one is an engraving of the diasporic Filipino experience, etched with finely drawn emotions of melancholy, longing, regret, and love. Deeply personal, often queer, always vulnerable, these stories reveal the ways in which history embeds itself in the body, in the mind, and, most of all, in the lonely soul. —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize Winner, The Sympathizer
Noel Alumit’s brilliant, long-awaited collection, MUSIC HEARD IN HI-FI & Other Stories, spans decades, from the 1960s to the present, and is set mostly in Greater Los Angeles and Manila. Alumit is a storyteller who writes with profound compassion and sharp observations. He dramatizes the highs and lows of people who are not typically centered in movies and books, and trains his attention on the tragedy and beauty that has always been there if only we had paid more attention. A compelling, vibrant collection that you can read in one sitting, but will want to return to again and again. —Grace Talusan, The Body Papers
Like the crackles and sizzles in a vinyl groove, each story in Music Heard in Hi-Fi strikes a new and necessary note in how people find ways to cope with upheaval and the stifling norms of culture and family. From the Philippines of the 1970s to the much closer days of Los Angeles, Noel Alumit sings of the long pull of history and the present on all of us, the “innocent, strong, [and] hopeful.” —Manuel Muñoz, The Consequences
Surprise is embedded in Noel Alumit’s page-turning Music Heard in Hi-Fi & Other Stories. The unexpected outs itself with revelatory prose—like secrets tired of being hidden. Noel Alumit’s dancing prose touches the reader in stunning ways. —Dr. Michael Datcher, Animating Black and Brown Liberation: A Theory of American Literatures
Noel Alumit is a multidisciplinary artist. He wrote the bestselling novel Talking to the Moon and the award-winning Letters to Montgomery Clift. He won the Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association and the James Duggins Mid-Career Prize. He is currently an Associate Editor at Lion’s Roar Magazine.
