Four generations of a family that evolves from Chinese to Chinese-American are spanned in these 11 linked stories from newcomer Wong. Macao and mainland China serve as bookends for the other nine stories, set in Honolulu. The thematic link of the whole is the erosion of traditional beliefs. Mai Wah, an elderly woman living in Macao, is wedded to the old ways (``Chinese medicine for Chinese people''). She hates the idea of her sickly grandson Wei being treated in a Westernized Hong Kong hospital. Several decades later, the middle-aged Wei is living in Honolulu with his wife Marie (an adopted child, she doesn't look ``pure Chinese'') and their children Julia and Michael. Wei is still sickly (a family trait), a reluctant immigrant unlikely to realize his American dream of owning a restaurant, but the more robust and Americanized Marie patronizes a white hairdresser and shops greedily in malls; only when burying her mother does she revert to tradition (deep graves fend off evil spirits). Meanwhile, Michael is eager to break with his past completely. Early on, he is attracted to white males; he has a serious crush on his track coach. In the concluding title story (by far the richest and most nuanced), he is visiting relatives in Hong Kong and Macao with Wei, but his heart is already in Chicago, where he is due to start college. In China, it is a stranger, a gay white American and Sinophile, who behaves like ``the perfect Chinese son'' around Wei, who in turn has been stunned to learn that his grandmother's version of family history was a ``fairy tale.'' Wei cannot accept a revision of the past, any more than he will be able to accept his son's gay present and future. That title story lends luster to an otherwise rather tepid collection that lacks an emotional charge.
Pub Date: March 10, 1994
ISBN: 0-89255-197-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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