“The Year She
Left Us’ is both coming of age novel and family drama. The main character is
Ari, who narrates much of the novel. She was a Chinese orphan, left as an
infant in a department store, adopted by a single woman, a hard working public
defender. She is considered not only lucky because she got adopted by an
American, but extra lucky because her mother is Chinese-American. No one need
know she’s adopted, unlike the many Chinese girls (the children adopted out to America are most often girls, because of China’s ‘one child’ law; abandoning the girl
baby allows them to try again for the coveted son) who are adopted by white
people. Unlike other Chinese adoptees in the group of young girls (“Western
Adopted Chinese Daughters”, aka the Whackadoodles) her mother takes her to for learning
about her Chinese heritage, she doesn’t feel lucky. She focuses on the fact
that she was abandoned, that she wasn’t good enough to love. She never feels
like she fits in, not even with the other adoptees. While on a trip to China – which includes a tour of the
orphanages- with the adoptee group, she is approached by a man who claims he is
her father, an event that pushes her over the edge and she cuts her finger off.
Things don’t
get any better when Ari returns home. Digging around the house one day, she
discovers old pictures, ones from about the time when she was adopted, showing
a man, along with herself as a baby held against his chest. On the back are the
words “Aaron practicing to be a father”. She decides that she must find this
Aaron; perhaps this will tell her who she is. She ends up in Alaska for months on this quest, and that
isn’t the end of her wandering as she tries to find herself.
Interspersed
with Ari’s narrative are third person chapters about her mother Charlie, her
aunt Les, and Gran. Men are absent from the lives of these three women, and the
women seem to survive just fine- on the surface. Charlie is driven by sympathy
for her poor clients; Les is a judge and driven by ambition; Gran feels the
past should be thrown away. None of them understand Ari’s need to belong
somewhere. Neither, for that matter, does Ari.
The characters
are vivid- especially Ari and Gran. Charlie and Les have less depth; they are
politically correct and career driven; they are the stereotype of Asian Americans.
Gran is a much more colorful person; Ari does just about everything a bad girl
can do. I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for Les and Charlie; they are pretty
flat. I loved Gran and wished she had more of a part, and while I didn’t much
like Ari I did sympathize with her and her search for answers that can never be
found. It’s hard enough to be a teenager without wondering why your parents
abandoned you. Why does Ari fixate on this while the other Whackadoodles don’t?
We never really find out; people are just different. This book has surprising
depth and maturity for a first novel; Ma is definitely a strong new voice in
Asian American literature.
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Neither of these things affected my review.
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