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58th out of 295 books
—
440 voters
The Love Wife
by
Gish Jen (Goodreads Author)
From the massively talented Gish Jen comes a barbed, moving, and stylistically dazzling new novel about the elusive nature of kinship. The Wongs describe themselves as a “half half” family, but the actual fractions are more complicated, given Carnegie’s Chinese heritage, his wife Blondie’s WASP background, and the various ethnic permutations of their adopted and biological...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
October 11th 2005
by Vintage
(first published 2004)
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Carnegie Wong is a first generation Chinese-American, with Blondie (his white wife, so nicknamed by his mother); two adopted daughters, one Chinese, one of unknown Asian descent; and baby Bailey, his biological child, who defies genetics and looks not at all Asian. His mother, Mama Wong, is the Asian fiction cliche (So common, in fact, that there has to be some truth in it. At any rate, I love the cliche, so so be it.) of the pidgin English speaking, passive-aggressive, iron-willed manipulator....more
Jen's third novel (Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land) draws a wide range of opinions, from the glowing to the bitter. One common thread is appreciation for Jen's prose, although it plays like a safety valve in the negative reviews, as if the writers had to find something to like. The multiple first-person narrators provide perspective and richness, as does Jen's bighearted insight into the cultural divide. Yet, even the positive reviews struggle to reconcile the first two thirds of the
...more
What is good about this book is that it undercuts the cliche of the always wise Chinese eespecially elders. The old mother is a nightmare, controlling her son from beyond the grave. The immigrant relative, Lanlan, plays a game of seducing the daughters of the family with 'Chinese wisdom' while seducing the husband in another way. The multiple narrators work well in the audio version, maybe not so well in print. The narration is heavy with the preteen, 11 year old Wendy, and the reader must suspe...more
The Modern Family
The Love wife by Gish Jen published by Vintage Contemporaries in 2005
This book tells the story of a nontraditional American family and how they deal with not only the idiosyncrasies found in any family’s make up, but with the specific difficulties faced by an interracial couple made up of Asian American Carnegie and European American Jane, better known as Blondie. Their family is made up of their one biological baby Bailey and two adopted, Asian daughters Wendy and Lizzy, as wel...more
The Love wife by Gish Jen published by Vintage Contemporaries in 2005
This book tells the story of a nontraditional American family and how they deal with not only the idiosyncrasies found in any family’s make up, but with the specific difficulties faced by an interracial couple made up of Asian American Carnegie and European American Jane, better known as Blondie. Their family is made up of their one biological baby Bailey and two adopted, Asian daughters Wendy and Lizzy, as wel...more
The novel addresses important topics such as adoption and Chinese American families as well as marriage and family life and Chinese customs. It is written in a narrative format as told from the voices of the main characters. As a result, all of the characters reveal their thoughts and feelings through their narration of the events as they occur. I did learn many things about Chinese culture and appreciated the blending of families both through adoption and culture. I felt that the transitions in...more
Gish Jen: another HOW HAVE I NEVER READ HER BEFORE NOW? author. And where, please, can I find other excellently-written poignant, painful, funny, and incredibly readable novels that address immigration, transracial marriage, transracial/transnational adoption issues, and first/second generation American dynamics? The constantly shifting points of view can be occasionally tricky to wrap your head around, especially when the narrators change 5 times on a single page, but ultimately the conversatio...more
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I actually listened to this novel, and the actors were amazing. The entire story seemed like a dialogue of sorts, and it wasn't until I read the reviews here that I realized that the POV was intentionally mixed up and the author employed no quotation marks.
So I can't speak to that confusion. I got who was speaking and when he or she was speaking as the actors changed roles. The actor who portrayed Carnegie was wonderful, his version of Mama Wong so thoughtful and well done.
But as for the story--...more
So I can't speak to that confusion. I got who was speaking and when he or she was speaking as the actors changed roles. The actor who portrayed Carnegie was wonderful, his version of Mama Wong so thoughtful and well done.
But as for the story--...more
I enjoyed the narration in five voices and many of the literary "tricks." And yet, I found myself waiting to finish the novel. The prose was enjoyable, the plot was generally interesting, but the characters seemed to be a bit caricatured in places. I struggled, in particular, with 11-year-old Wendy's narrations as they seemed to be differentiated from the narrations of the adults only by adding the word "like" at random. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable read, and the explorations of the concept...more
Gish Jen's writing is marvelously witty, and each character is so clearly their own person that it's as if the writing conceit--that we're reading a sort of transcription or oral history--is true, that these people exist and Jen just happened to write down their every utterance.
I like the meditations on what it means to be American or Chinese, and and how do we make our place in the world in a way that's recognizable not only to ourselves but to our loved ones.
But the last third of the book! Wh...more
I like the meditations on what it means to be American or Chinese, and and how do we make our place in the world in a way that's recognizable not only to ourselves but to our loved ones.
But the last third of the book! Wh...more
An overall, fair and well-executed novel though it's a tad too long and redundant at times. It's the same old story of an immigrant trying to assimilate themselves into American culture, trying to stay within traditional culture; breaking out of tradition; bla bla bla. The reason why I would recommend this novel is that its a light read, funny at times, and actually does not stereotype its Asian characters as one-dimensional archetypes of the foreigner-survivor traits that so many novels about A...more
I'm on page 57 of this book, and as an official member of the Clean Plate Book Club, I've decided to stop reading it. I'm just not connecting with it. I don't like the way it's written (five different narrators--I have to keep checking back to see who's "on"). I don't care about the characters. It's boring. The story is supposed to be "Chinese mother hates her daughter-in-law and attempts to control her son from the grave," but where is it? I haven't reached that story yet. So, I'm stopping and...more
I have wanted to read Jen Gish since she was the Writer-in-Residence at my alma mater, Boston College in 2010. Sadly I was disappointed in this novel. Many reviewers have commented on the multiple first person narrative the author employs which some found distracting. I actually thought it was an effective literary tool that moved the plot forward. Basically the novel is the story of a blended family created when a caucasian American woman marries a Chinese American man who has surprisingly adop...more
To Love a Love Wife?
Gish Jen’s "The Love Wife" is a novel based on the multicultural American family and the issues it arises. We meet the Wong family: Carnegie the father, Blondie the mother, Lizzy their rebellious adoptive daughter, Wendy their shy adoptive daughter, and Bailey their biological son. Carnegie, Lizzy, and Wendy are all of Asian descent and Blondie Caucasian with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. Together, they are a family.
The story opens with the expected arrival of one of Carn...more
Gish Jen’s "The Love Wife" is a novel based on the multicultural American family and the issues it arises. We meet the Wong family: Carnegie the father, Blondie the mother, Lizzy their rebellious adoptive daughter, Wendy their shy adoptive daughter, and Bailey their biological son. Carnegie, Lizzy, and Wendy are all of Asian descent and Blondie Caucasian with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. Together, they are a family.
The story opens with the expected arrival of one of Carn...more
Another recommended author. And she's great. It took me a chapter or two to get used to her way of structuring dialogue. The novel was sort of like a play: the character's name came before the dialogue, but actually there wasn't always dialogue; the name change signalled a change in point of view, so there could be dialogue (with other characters' voices included) or it could be just the named character's thoughts or spoken words. I didn't describe that very well; it's really not complicated, ju...more
The Love Wife follows the trials and tribulations of a racially mixed family--a white wife (Blondie) from an artsy, waspy family; a Chinese husband (Carnegie); two adopted daughters, one Chinese and one of Asian (possibly Chinese or Japanese) descent; and finally, a late-in-life biological child who takes after Blondie in appearance. A complicated, but loving family until Lan, a distant Chinese relative of Carnegie's, arrives--ostensibly to act as a nanny/caretaker for the family. Instead, she s...more
This book was quite interesting and kept me engaged most of the time - although I occasionally got confused by the multiple points of view of the different characters, and by the author's apparent allergy to quotation marks.
Carnegie Wong is a Chinese-American man married to Blondie, an extremely white yet Chinese-speaking woman. Carnegie's Chinese mama does not approve, even after the couple adopts two Chinese children. After Mama Wong's death, they discover that in her will, she has left the an...more
Carnegie Wong is a Chinese-American man married to Blondie, an extremely white yet Chinese-speaking woman. Carnegie's Chinese mama does not approve, even after the couple adopts two Chinese children. After Mama Wong's death, they discover that in her will, she has left the an...more
Downloaded from Audible.com
Narrator: Linda Stephens, Ken Leung, Nancy Wu, and more
Publisher: Recorded Books, 2004
Length: 15 hours and 34 min.
Publisher's Summary
Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family.
Chinese-American Carnegie Wong and his Waspy wife Blondie have...more
Narrator: Linda Stephens, Ken Leung, Nancy Wu, and more
Publisher: Recorded Books, 2004
Length: 15 hours and 34 min.
Publisher's Summary
Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family.
Chinese-American Carnegie Wong and his Waspy wife Blondie have...more
I "read" this as an audio book, and thought it was very very good. The acting and directing was fantastic -- it is one of the best audio books as an audio performance that I have ever heard. I really enjoyed the characters as people - each very believable, likeable, and flawed. Also interesting was the intersections of Chinese and WASP culture. Humor is always tough, but I laughed out loud multiple times at things the various characters said. Very enjoyable, overall.
Really a 3.5 star rating, but I'll give it the extra star for ambition and scope. I didn't find the multiple narrators confusing, except for how it undermined my natural desire to "side" with one character or another in the complicated mess Jen creates for them -- every time you feel one person is being treated unfairly, you switch to another POV and understand why. I loved the frank exploration of identity and adoption and interracial families, even when it made the book a little hard to read,...more
This book by Gish Jen was not what I expected. Really, I don't know what I expected. It covers the feelings of Chinese immigrants and second generation who have to deal with their Chinese background and American ways. It did not speak for me as it did to some of the others who read the book. Don't know why, but it seemed kind of disjointed in places.
J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
Although I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook, it does come with mixed reactions. First, the story did seem to drag at times. Second, I never felt an attachment to any of the characters. Rather, I felt more apathetic toward the characters and didn't feel that sense of urgency to know what would happen next. That said, I really appreciated listening to the different narrators and I did enjoy the author's writing style. She tackled complex issues, such as culturalism, self-identity, and th...more
I think I would have given this book a higher rating if I had read it before I read her latest book, World and Town. Sometimes going backward in a writer's career shows how her writing has blossomed with experience. That is not going to stop me, however, from trying another earlier effort or two by Gish Jen. Stay tuned!
Although this book featured eccentric characters and includes interesting issues of cultural identity and adoption, I can not recommend it. One of the main characters, who was supposed to be an executive,proved to be such a wimp that she let her family be taken over by another woman. I kept waiting for her to speak up or do something,but it never happened.
I am admittedly a "Chinaphile" and love most of the Chinese authors. But I listened to this book and was thoroughly entertained by the accents of the Chinese characters speaking English. I have friends who speak exactly the same way. Also, my limited experience with Chinese resonated exactly with the inscrutability of the key characters. I loved it!
I found this an interesting story about a family -- couple in their late 40s, with teenage adopted daughters & a biological baby. As part of his mother's will, a distant relative from China comes to live with the family for a few years. I found the method of story telling -- much like a conversation or an interview about the past with people interrupting to add facts less compelling. It was an ok book, but not very compelling.
So, who IS the love wife? That's the question that runs through this book. But it's ponderously long, and the characters are not people I'd enjoy spending time with. Carnegie is tolerable, Blondie is irritating, and LanLan is enigmatic. Unless you got it off the "free shelf" like I did, don't invest in this one.
Really liked the flow and narrative transitions. However, was a little confused on what was included and why sometimes. Love the idea of cultural miscommunication, but found the novel a bit unsure of itself at times. I understand exemplifying a point, but some moments just felt indulgent or unedited.
A typical contemporary literary (aka plotless) novel. But the characters became extremely real to me as the book went on, so I was pulled into their lives. Plus, I have a thing for adoption. I am fascinated by books about orphans or adopted children. (I do not know why.) If the characters had not been so well-developed and adopted, I may not have liked this book at all, since nothing much happens.
I liked how the book explores the struggle between one's cultural and national identity, espicially for the Chinese-American family. I also liked the study of a modern family with both biological and adopted children. However, the ending is weak.
Not sure if it's fair for me to review this book since I never finished it, but I just couldn't get into it. The narrative feels really unnatural, which turned me off really quickly. It's gotten some good reviews though, so maybe I need to be more patient?
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Gish Jen grew up in New York, where she spoke more Yiddish than Chinese. She has been featured in a PBS American Masters program on the American novel. Her distinctions also include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute fellowship. She was awarded a Lannan Literary Prize in 1999 and received a Harold and Mildred Str...more
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