Abi Nako, Or So I Thought

Abi Nako, or So I Thought is a memoir of Cruz’s first ten years in Davao City, where she moved after her heterosexual marriage had failed. It is about her efforts to rebuild her life as a single mother to two children and her adventures in (re)fashioning herself as a writer and a lesbian in the face of her own false expectations. As a memoir, the overarching narrative is concerned with starting over and dealing with the challenges of relocating to a distinctly Davao community. But with this memoir being a significant part of her process of becoming, Cruz also interrogates its form by approaching it in a nonlinear manner, with twenty stand-alone essays as chapters and some graphic elements. “Jhoanna Cruz writes with audacity on the tightrope between self-sensationalization and conventional gracefulness. In these personal essays where she imagines redemption, I am reminded of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. Indeed, Cruz emphasizes how one must write one’s own story, no matter how seemin