First-novelist Dressler tells a largely formulaic tale of a Dutch-Indonesian woman making a new life in California after surviving WW II. When the narrator, twentysomething Marget, a dancer, comes to help out while Gerda, one of her two grandmothers, has knee surgery, she's not entirely motivated by family piety. She's pregnant, the affair with the baby's father is over, and, as is usual in the genre, there are matters of family history to be resolved. Admitting that she comes from a family who ``don't like to name things. . . [who] prefer to keep them folded away in shut drawers,'' Marget soon alerts us to upcoming revelations. Fan and Gerda, her grandmothers, are of mixed Dutch and Indonesian blood, born in Indonesia when it was still a Dutch colony. Only Fan, in actuality, is Marget's blood relative. When the Japanese occupied Indonesia, Gerda, a champion tennis player and the widow of a wealthy businessman, rescued Fan and her baby daughter, Marget's mother, and kept them out of the internment camps by playing tennis for the Japanese. When the Japanese retreated and civil war broke out, Gerda and Fan—by then lovers—and the baby fled first to Singapore, then to Holland. Fan's husband, who'd been a prisoner of war, divorced her, and then the trio immigrated to California. In the days leading up to Gerda's operation, Marget has ample time to reflect on her family's history, to observe how the women have aged, and to ponder her own situation, which she has kept secret from the family. The operation is a success, and she learns a few family secrets from an aunt that only deepen her love for Fan. Armed with the obligatory empowering insight (``the past sometimes makes an answer in the future''), Marget is now ready to have her baby. Luminous prose isn't enough to spark a low-watt story.
Pub Date: May 19, 1997
ISBN: 1-878448-75-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling story about a woman in a deeply patriarchal society.
A 33-year-old woman in Seoul slowly breaks under the burden of misogyny she's been facing all her life.
Kim Jiyoung’s life is typical of a woman in South Korea. Born the second of three siblings, with an older sister and younger brother, her experiences with patriarchy begin early. At home, her brother gets preferential treatment and less responsibility. At school, she’s told that boys who bully her just like her. Though her mother encourages and supports her in myriad ways, including making sure she goes to university and follows her heart, Jiyoung grows to realize that in every aspect of life and work, women are dehumanized, devalued, and objectified. The book’s strength lies in how succinctly Cho captures the relentless buildup of sexism and gender discrimination over the course of one woman’s life. With clinical detachment, the book covers Jiyoung’s childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, first job, and, finally, marriage and motherhood. The pressure of the patriarchy is so incessant that she starts to dissociate, transforming into other women she’s known, like her mother and her college friend. The central critique of patriarchy is clearly—and necessarily—tied in to that of capitalism. Jiyoung wonders, as she catalogs the ways in which the world is built to accommodate “maximum output with minimum input...who’ll be the last one standing in a world with these priorities, and will they be happy?” To be clear, there’s nothing revolutionary here—it’s basically feminism 101 but in novel form, complete with occasional footnotes. There is not a single move to recognize anything outside of a binary gender. But the story perfectly captures misogynies large and small that will be recognizable to many.
A compelling story about a woman in a deeply patriarchal society.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63149-670-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers...
Exploring humankind's place in the universe and the nature of humanity, many of the stories in this stellar collection focus on how technological advances can impact humanity’s evolutionary journey.
Chiang's (Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002) second collection begins with an instant classic, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 2008. A time-travel fantasy set largely in ancient Baghdad, the story follows fabric merchant Fuwaad ibn Abbas after he meets an alchemist who has crafted what is essentially a time portal. After hearing life-changing stories about others who have used the portal, he decides to go back in time to try to right a terrible wrong—and realizes, too late, that nothing can erase the past. Other standout selections include “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a story about a software tester who, over the course of a decade, struggles to keep a sentient digital entity alive; “The Great Silence,” which brilliantly questions the theory that humankind is the only intelligent race in the universe; and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny,” which chronicles the consequences of machines raising human children. But arguably the most profound story is "Exhalation" (which won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), a heart-rending message and warning from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Although the being theorizes that all life will die when the universes reach “equilibrium,” its parting advice will resonate with everyone: “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.”
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers in a big way.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
