This collection of stories focuses on the experiences of
Chinese immigrants in both China and America. They are loosely connected;
characters from one story will be mentioned in another. These people do not
have the nice house of the family in ‘Fresh Off the Boat’; the family in the
first story at one point are sharing one room with 10 people; the room is just
mattresses on the floor. Not to mention the cockroaches…. Other stories have
the children left alone to take care of themselves because bother parents are
working; in one, sexual exploration turns into sexual violence. One man whose
lives in poverty with his wife and child has an endless string of mistresses. A
grandmother claims to have breastfed her grandchildren, she loved them so much.
A mother demands to be loved more than her husband, putting her child in an
intolerable bind.
These are really grim stories. I had trouble finishing the
book. I don’t demand all happy endings and unicorns farting rainbows, but there
were no bright spots in these stories. Still, there are moments of laughter.
Zhang writes with black humor that doesn’t lighten the mood but does make it
survivable. I think I’m not sophisticated enough for this book.
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Neither of these things influenced my review.
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