Look at this primarily as a perceptive appraisal of what it must feel like to be a Chinese child catapulted into the maelstrom of New York- upper east side, and then Chinatown. From this angle it has real charm and appeal. There's none of the cheap jocosity of the pigeon-English humorist approach. Instead, it is a sincere view of what elevated railway past the window-taps that run hot water and cold and plenty of it- endless variety of foods in the stores and so on mean to young Tom and Eva. On a deeper level, there is the picture of the wife's philosophical settling down to making a home for her little family, to adjusting to her friendly Italian daughter-in-law, to the difficulty of accepting the cheap night club entertainer that her go-getter son marries. The mother is the dominant personality in a story in which Tom is, presumably, the sort of boy Lin Yutang might have been in similar status. An off stage peek at New York as viewed from Chinatown. But as a novel, it lacks focus.