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WE often write to remember. But I wrote Out of the Box to un-forget.
For years, memories swirled in my mind like incense smoke—fragrant, fleeting, ghost-like. They came at night, during long walks, or in the hush between prayers. Stories I had tucked away beneath my ribs began to stir. Some whispered. Some shouted. A few wept. And eventually, they insisted on being written down—not for legacy, but for clarity. For freedom. For peace.
This is not a chronological memoir. Nor is it entirely fiction. It is something in-between: a mosaic of reflections, confessions, parables, and what some might call reinventions. But isn’t memory itself a kind of fiction? Each of us is both the author and the unreliable narrator of our own past.
I chose to step into the strange narrative device of my own funeral as a way of telling this story—not out of morbidity, but to shake loose the filters we wear in life. When the final curtain falls, what remains? What echoes? I imagined being both present and absent, witness and subject, flesh and spirit. I imagined being out of the box—of breath, of body, of roles. That freed me to tell the truth.
The truth, of course, comes in many shades. There is the truth of my father’s discipline, sharp as a stick. The truth of my mother’s silence, heavy as rice sacks. The truth of my younger self—restless, sarcastic, craving the sacred yet flirting with the profane. There is the truth of being Chinese in the Philippines, then Filipino in Canada, then a little bit of both, and sometimes neither. There is the truth of aging—graceful, reluctant, redemptive. And there is the hardest truth of all: that I have often been the one who misunderstood those who loved me most.
For a while, I aspired to be an architect, and later realized, that this whole ambition was predicated on the reading of a book, Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, and that the uncompromising creative process equating destruction with integrity was a childish ideal, and a dangerous one at that. This book I hope can be likened to a building, not one with a brutalist frame, a massive monolithic form that exposes concrete exteriors – but more of a cantilevered structure, a vertical surface without external bracing – something that relies on tension, compression, moment, and shear to maintain stability. Besides, I hate the brutalist reference to its visual representation of power and the deep state. Just the thought that I could create a kind of gravity-defying protrusions (my cantilever) was enough for me to see a unique path to the memoir genre – to forge something new in this literary device. I aim for the ether; let us hope I succeed.
If there is one thread running through this book, it is the ache to reconcile. With my past. With my family. With my God. With the boy who loved stories and the man who feared his own reflection. Writing this was a way to gather the scattered pieces and say to them: you, too, belong.
I am indebted to the Viber group Booksilonians, curated by the very master of memoir, Teodoro “Spike” Yabut, Jr., for this book’s creation and existence. While absorbing myriads of tips and warnings about memoir-writing—a genre challenging for someone like me more accustomed to poetry and non-fiction prose—I forged ahead with a more straightforward, conversational tone. Excerpts of my work in progress were shared with the group, eliciting encouragement from many. To them I owe lasting gratitude. Ideas of one’s past, the remembrance of characters that drifted into one’s life, remain like skeletons in the valley of bones—until something or someone sparks them into flesh and animation. Such is the creative process: the tenacity of an ego longing to be heard, aided by lightning rods of the soul. Thank you, Oscar Lumen, Noy Dy-Liacco, Rogie Concepcion, Tony Cailao, Edwin Paña, Macky Galvez, Ricky Rionda, Benny Fulgencio, Spike Yabut, among others. Finally, I ask in advance the forgiveness of those I’ve portrayed here—some with hyperbolic adornment, and perhaps not always favorably. Your light still guides me down the mysterious corridors of being.
Some of the voices in this book are real. Some are imagined. Most are both. I believe the soul knows how to recognize what’s true, even in a parable. So, I leave it to you, dear reader, to discern which is which—not as a puzzle, but as an invitation. Come walk with me. Come sit beside the fire of recollection. Come meet the people who shaped me, the ghosts I still carry, the psalms I murmur when I can’t sleep.
This book is dedicated to my sons, Alexis and Lucas, whose existence continues to teach me what it means to be alive, vulnerable, and hopeful. And to my friends, my fellow sojourners, who remind me—by their presence and, sometimes, their silence—that storytelling is an act of courage and communion.
I step out of the box not to escape, but to be seen. And perhaps, in doing so, to help others step out of theirs.
Welcome to my unfinished hymn. — Alfie Kwong (August 2025)
Note: The Book, Out of the Box (a Novella) – Just Another Way for a Memoir, is published by Amazon, and is available in Kindle, Soft, and Hard Cover on Amazon.com (US) and Amazon.ca (in Canada) and in other amazon websites (e.g., Germany, France, UK, etc.)
