Tom Cho
Look Who’s Morphing
Giramondo Publishing
Fiction, paperback, 192pp, $24.95
ISBN 978-1-920882-54-9
Publication May 2009

One clear and sunny afternoon, I rampaged through Tokyo, just as Godzilla had always done.
However, I had not morphed into Godzilla or any other kind of giant reptilian creature. I was simply
myself, except that I was 55 metres tall with a commensurate degree of physical strength and I had
atomic ray breath and I was wearing a leather vest with blue stonewash jeans that were tucked into
leopard-skin platform boots and I had a giant electric guitar slung across my back and I had a guitar
amplifier clipped to my belt.
So begins ‘Cock Rock’, the climactic final story in Look Who’s Morphing, in which our hero
imagines himself as a giant rock star, performing to a huge crowd of fans in Tokyo.
Afterwards he lies down in a park and falls asleep. When he wakes he cannot move – he is
tied down by thousands of gossamer threads. . .
Tom Cho’s collection of fictions and fantasies is all about morphing and transformation.
Through the shape-shifting, we follow the narrator on his surreal adventures, which
include dirty dancing with Johnny Castle, a rambunctious encounter with TV’s Dr Phil, a
job as Whitney Houston’s bodyguard and another as a Muppet, a period in service with
the von Trapp family in The Sound of Music, a totally destructive outing as Godzilla, and
that high octane performance as a Gulliver-sized cock rock singer, complete with cohort of
tiny adoring girls. As these fantasies of identity, sexuality and power unfold, the narrator,
his family, and everything around him, morph and change, to the moment when the
collection reaches its climax.
Look Who’s Morphing is a unique, hilarious, often menacing romp through the landscape of
popular culture, and the forces that shape it. Family, films, video games, comics, music
clips and porn flicks combine to form this fantasy playground, against which Cho balances
a deeper intellectual engagement with the fundamental questions of the self, and its place
in the world.
Tom Cho’s stories have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies in Australia and
internationally. He has also performed at festivals around the country, including in the awardwinning
show Hello Kitty. He has won grants and awards for his fiction, and is currently
completing a PhD in Professional Writing. His work can be found online at http://www.tomcho.com

Look Who’s Morphing, launched by Sophie Cunningham on Saturday 16 May, 5pm, at
Hares and Hyenas bookshop, 63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy in Melbourne.

Giramondo Publishing Company
website: http://www.giramondopublishing.com