A collection of heartbreaking, vivid, original stories set among the Philipino-American communities of California and the Philippines, now with a new preface by the authorFrom flophouses in San Francisco to steamy movie theaters in Manila to army bases in the deserted wastelands of California, the stories in Monstress explore what it means to be alien and insider, American and Filipino. Lesley Tenorios tales are framed by tense, fascinating dichotomies: tenderness and power, the fantastical and the realistic, pop culture and high culture, the American and the exotic. Tenorio balances these opposites with rare skill, humor, and deep understanding, exploring universal themes-the sometimes suffocating ties of family, the melancholoy of isolation, the need to find connectionswith breathtaking originality.