TYPICAL AMERICAN

by Gish Jen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 22, 1991

Whatever China went through in 1948. . .Out of an acre of worn silk emerged a red, red comrade. . .Isn't this the story of every transformation, though, that the past lies about its feet in folds, so that when it should dance, well. . ."" In this arresting first novel, three young Chinese, from established families, are shunted forever away from now-Communist China and away from the limitations of their confined childhood to the everlasting adolescence that is the dream of America, that ""wilderness of freedoms."" Almost too late a sad knowledge will link past and present in a dream's end, and one perfect fool becomes an imperfect adult. ""You listen but you don't hear,"" Lai Fu's tutor had screamed, and the grown-up child, now named ""Ralph"" in America, remembers wishing ""to destroy his father's world."" But now, the family gone forever, Ralph muses that ""he wasn't supposed to succeed."" At first Ralph, on a scholarship to study in New York, unable to return to China, fumbles through a downslide, a crazy love, and is poor and lost when the first of three miracles happen. He's found by Older Sister, Theresa, a medical student, and ""life itself unfurled."" He'll marry Helen, Theresa's friend from China. Then Helen, who ""makes herself at home in her exile,"" secretly fixes the furnace in their seedy apartment. (Count another miracle when the heat comes on!) Theresa (miracle three) tells Ralph she lost her scholarship--which makes him feel good. (She's lying). Indeed the ""world was giving to him."" He reads The Power of Positive Thinking. He's an ""imagineer"" to greatness. Enter Grover, a Chinese-American wheeler-dealer, who will prick Ralph on to disaster as if with a forked tail. All the paradisiacal American joys--a suburban house, money coming in, an academic degree, two daughters--evaporate; and tragedy eclipses the verities of love and goodness. ""Man was the sum of his limits. . .America was not America."" Inevitably this will be compared to The Joy Luck Club, a marvelous explosion of voices, color, fantasy and warmth. Jen's work is cool, clever, but undeniably talented.

Pub Date: March 22, 1991

ISBN: 0307389227

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1991

Categories: FICTION