98 Wounds — Justin Chin

"A gay, punk-rock Chinese American in the age of AIDS, Chin confronts all manner of hypocrisy." -- San Francisco Chronicle

98 Wounds is a series of improbably linked stories that reimagines and reconciles the abject, the outlaw, the ostracized, the misfits, and the cranky contrarians among us.

Gay people have never been as free -- or divided -- as in today's society. As the gay majority surges into the mainstream, a social construct has emerged depicting "Good Gays" and "Bad Gays." Endless mythmaking goes into dehumanizing the Bad.

Barebackers, poz sexpigs, meth-users, sexual libertines, and fetishists have been blamed, shamed, and disdained. Any vicious untruth or loathsome rumor about them -- even those contrary to science or common sense -- is accepted without question.

The characters populating 98 Wounds run roughshod in a city spiraling towards collapse. They broker urgent desires in constant pursuit of identity, obsession, rituals of hope, even the simplicity of an ordinary life. They unwaveringly root for their own understanding of belonging, contentment, pleasure, and love.

In 98 Wounds, either we are all damned, or we are all saved: a sentiment that speaks to all cultures in these uncertain times.

Award-winning writer Justin Chin is the author of six books, including Bite Hard (Manic D Press) and Mongrel (St. Martin's Press). His works have been widely anthologized. Born in Malaysia, raised and educated in Singapore, shipped to the United States by way of Hawaii, he currently lives in San Francisco, California.