Quick, colorful glances at a rich culture.
A writer offers autobiographical vignettes, short stories, and reflections on Chinese culture and history.
In this book, Yu (Two Swordmasters, 2018, etc.) reveals that her “official and reported” birth date in north China is April 1, 1939. A self-described “unwanted girl child,” she was born after the Nanjing Massacre, when Japanese troops murdered an estimated 3 million Chinese people in a matter of weeks. Her father had been captured by the Japanese to work as an interpreter while her busy mother kept eight children safe from the Japanese army. In 1949, Yu’s family escaped from Communist China to Taiwan. Many years later, the author wrote columns for an American newspaper, the Pueblo Chieftain, and dreamed of publishing a book about China. After battling cancer in 2006, she was determined to realize her dream and pass down stories to her grandchildren. The end result is this heartfelt compilation of childhood memories and tales about Chinese culture and history. Divided into two parts, the book’s first section presents 16 easy-reading selections: autobiographical pieces, short stories, and essays. Sometimes the volume feels like an informative classroom lecture; for example, in the essay “Three Chinese Poems,” Yu briefly discusses classical Chinese poetry. Other works are much more personal. Once, on a terrible train ride, Yu’s mother hid from Japanese soldiers by disguising herself as a man and her daughters as boys. The author also paints a memorable portrait of the outmoded custom of foot binding. In “My Mother’s Big Feet,” Yu’s mother—whose forward-thinking father wouldn’t allow her feet to be bound—was ridiculed her entire life for having “big” (smaller than size 5) feet. And the tender reflections in “A snowy night in Canada” chronicle the author’s struggles to raise her daughters alone. The second section presents 41 newspaper articles with details that should leave a lasting impression on readers of all ages. For example, “The Archer and the Moon Goddess” explains why ceramic rabbits are popular gifts for children during the moon festival. While they are not chronological, these succinct works are easy to browse, and Yu’s lively prose brings her subjects to life.
Quick, colorful glances at a rich culture.Pub Date: July 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984543-08-0
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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