These battles are fought with pens, stick figures, tender drawings on a child’s back; silent screams are in the background.
A ribbon of frustration unfurls through this collection of 12 short stories that chronicle the efforts of Chinese and Chinese American women seeking to speak the truth about their lives.
The experiences of Ye’s heroines—and one hero of legend, Cangjie—run from the court of the Yellow Emperor to the era of internet dating, but an inability to communicate marks all the tales. In the first story, "Stars," Luyao, a graduate student in economics who's also a wife and mother, is rendered mute by a stroke; though she's bilingual, she struggles to regain language, any language, beyond the only phrase she can utter: “hao.” (Hao, the most common word in Chinese, can be translated as goodand is symbolized traditionally by a kneeling woman holding a child.) In the title story, Qingxin, another young mother, tortured during the Cultural Revolution, literally eats some of her words to avoid further persecution while attempting to create the semblance of normalcy for her child by playing a calming word game. Yun, an internet bride in "Crazy English," wrestles with ways to deter a stalker she first noticed at the library, balancing the unspoken against the spoken. Ancestral experiences echo throughout the dozen stories as Ye’s protagonists battle cyclical repressions and common losses: Feet are bound, children are lost, and husbands are absent, heedless, or worse. The need to understand and communicate these miseries drives Ye’s women to speak in any way they can. An opposite need, that of a mother to comfort a child, propels as well. Two of the stories, “Hao” and “Milk,” were awarded Pushcart Prizes, but all of these sensitive tales amplify voices that have often been silenced.
These battles are fought with pens, stick figures, tender drawings on a child’s back; silent screams are in the background.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64622-060-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.
A lifetime of friendship endures many upheavals.
Ellie and Homa, two young girls growing up in Tehran, meet at school in the early 1950s. Though their families are very different, they become close friends. After the death of Ellie’s father, she and her difficult mother must adapt to their reduced circumstances. Homa’s more warm and loving family lives a more financially constrained life, and her father, a communist, is politically active—to his own detriment and that of his family’s welfare. When Ellie’s mother remarries and she and Ellie relocate to a more exclusive part of the city, the girls become separated. They reunite years later when Homa is admitted to Ellie’s elite high school. Now a political firebrand with aspirations to become a judge and improve the rights of women in her factionalized homeland, Homa works toward scholastic success and begins practicing political activism. Ellie follows a course, plotted originally by her mother, toward marriage. The tortuous path of the girls’ adult friendship over the following decades is played out against regime change, political persecution, and devastating loss. Ellie’s well-intentioned but naïve approach stands in stark contrast to Homa’s commitment to human rights, particularly for women, and her willingness to risk personal safety to secure those rights. As narrated by Ellie, the girls’ story incorporates frequent references to Iranian food, customs, and beliefs common in the years of tumult and reforms accompanying the Iranian Revolution. Themes of jealousy—even in close friendships—and the role of the shir zan, the courageous “lion women” of Iran who effect change, recur through the narrative. The heartaches associated with emigration are explored along with issues of personal sacrifice for the sake of the greater good (no matter how remote it may seem).
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668036587
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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