Brown Rice is a memoir that reads like an adventure-humor-romance-thriller set in Philippines during the turbulent years of the Marcos dictatorship of the 60s and 70s. It's a coming-of-age story of Spike, who idolizes JFK, joins the fraternity of Marcos, and is in search of the woman a psychic claims would change his life. Spike's father is an adman who wrote a musical he wants to sell to Broadway. Spike's mother is an art teacher struggling to raise eight children on a tight budget as her husband battles poor health and prejudice for better employment. The backdrop of Manila in the 70s,...