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Bitter in the Mouth

3.45 of 5 stars 3.45 · rating details · 898 ratings · 228 reviews

From Monique Truong, the bestselling and award-winning author of The Book of Salt, comes a brilliant, mesmerizing, beautifully written novel about a young woman’s search for identity and family, as she uncovers the secrets of her past and of history.

Growing up in the small town of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the 70’s and 80’s, Linda believes that she is profoundly...more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published August 31st 2010 by Random House

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Nov 14, 2011 T rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: asian-author, asian

Don't know why, but I like M. Truong's style of writing, having read both her books (Book of Salt first).

Bitter in the Mouth follows the life of Linda, who is adopted into a Southern family with a cast of definitely different personalities. Grandmother Iris is rather cold. Great uncle Harper's family nickname is Baby, and is the family homosexual; he has a special rapport with Linda. Mother DeAnne is rather aloof. Father was an attorney and passes away from a massive heart attack.

Linda has a r...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Diane rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'd give this a 2.5. According to the product description, "Growing up in small-town North Carolina in the 1970s and ’80s, Linda already knows that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. She can “taste” words. In this and in other ways, her body is a mystery to her. Linda’s awkward girlhood is nonetheless enlivened and emboldened by her dancing great-uncle Harper, and Kelly, her letter-writing best friend. Linda makes her way north to college and...more

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Jan 15, 2011 Marcie rated it 4 of 5 stars

There’s only one word for this book: compelling. Truong is a huge talent.

Once you become accustomed to the “foreign language” the narrator-protagonist speaks – that certain words create tastes in her mouth – the journey of a woman into her past childhood memories takes you on a journey into your own past. Do you remember the first time you tasted soda pop, and the fizz alarmed you?

I am intrigued by this author’s use of a synesthetic character to help readers as adults examine how the child-versi...more

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Aug 20, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Linda(mint) Hammerick(DrPepper) is bombarbed with "incomings" as the words she hears bring tates to her mouth. Her best friend Kelly(canned peaches) tries to help her as she grows up and her Step-mother DeAnne doesn't believe her. Her uncle Baby(honey) Harper(celery) is the strongest family figure to her as she is growing up. This book chronicles her life as she grows up attends college and then continues on with her life as she discovers the truth about her coming to his family and answers ques...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a book that is easy to fall into. The setting, characters have a familiar lilt to it, reminiscent of Southern classics like To Kill A Mockingbird. The main character's synesthesia allows for some interestingly poetic interpretations of classic scenes (boy meets girl scenes, especially). Others have mentioned that the book is a little self-conscious. I think it started out more charming and engaging than self-conscious, but toward the middle some of the "Southern" story characterizations,...more This is a book that is easy to fall into. The setting, characters have a familiar lilt to it, reminiscent of Southern classics like To Kill A Mockingbird. The main character's synesthesia allows for some interestingly poetic interpretations of classic scenes (boy meets girl scenes, especially). Others have mentioned that the book is a little self-conscious. I think it started out more charming and engaging than self-conscious, but toward the middle some of the "Southern" story characterizations, tropes, plot started to become a little more obvious and tiresome. The sense of imaginative-ness and quirkiness kind of dissolved as the plot moved along. The main character grew into one of those all-black wearing loner intellectual types. I'm still into reading it though. I like what she's attempting to do (the big reveal, which was spoiled for me in some of the reviews/interviews I listened to), and her writing is easy on the ears.

Just finished. I felt like the story was going through the motions in the second half. Everything seemed too on the nose and pat toward the end. I really wanted to like this book, because there are lots of smart and observant moments in the book. Maybe the smart and observant qualities would have been more fitting in an essay, not necessarily in a family drama. Maybe there was just too much there in the service of making a point.

I think the appeal of this book is similar to that of a genre novel. You sort of have to enjoy inhabiting the world of this book (family drama/dysfunction) and its conventions (how it goes about detailing the South, resolving or coming to terms with family drama/dysfunction) to be able to forgive some of the predictable moves the writer makes.

But it was worth reading. The intentions behind the book were original... I think. Just sometimes not the execution, which seemed a little clinical at times (you can almost see the cliff notes that might go along with the story).

I actually loved the "distractions" in the book. The historical vignettes especially, about Virginia Dare, the Wright Brothers, George Moses Horton. The writer's voice shines in these asides (but kind of irritatingly gets ruined, because you realize it sometimes serves to bring home certain points the author wants to make a little too obviously). (less)

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Nov 02, 2010 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, library-books

I read and loved Monique Truong's first novel, The Book of Salt, back in 2004, so I was excited to hear that she had a new novel out this year. The narrator of this one, Linda Hammerick, is a quirky person from a quirky family, which could be annoying but which I found pretty charming. Take, for example, this passage in the first chapter about her great-uncle, who used to be a librarian.

At work his methodology was conventional and efficient, but that wasn't the case in his own home. His books we

...more

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Jan 09, 2012 April rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love the way Troung strings words together, but this book is still not an easy one to follow. As a reader, there are places you want to go, strands you want to follow, but Troung doesn't let you. She is in control and you are dragged along her path at her speed. Its as though she opens doors and gives you a fleeting glimpse inside, but then closes it and suddenly tugs you down a completely different hallway, all the while you're digging in your heels screaming, "Wait! I want to see more of wha...more

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Sep 23, 2010 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s been a long time since I’ve been introduced to a character as original as Linda – a woman who suffers from auditory-gustatory synesthesia. Or, in simpler terms, she has the rare ability to “taste” words as a result of a “neurological condition that caused the involuntary mixing of the senses.”

Monique Truong represents her condition by marrying tastes with words; for example, “I thought youcannedgreenbeans knewpeanut butter.” Or “Lindamint. Stopcannedcorn it!” While the narrative can become...more It’s been a long time since I’ve been introduced to a character as original as Linda – a woman who suffers from auditory-gustatory synesthesia. Or, in simpler terms, she has the rare ability to “taste” words as a result of a “neurological condition that caused the involuntary mixing of the senses.”

Monique Truong represents her condition by marrying tastes with words; for example, “I thought youcannedgreenbeans knewpeanut butter.” Or “Lindamint. Stopcannedcorn it!” While the narrative can become a little cloying with this consistent device, it does serve to show the reader how estranged Linda is from her family…and indeed, just about everyone else in her life.

Except for her colorful great-uncle, Baby Harper. Baby Harper harbors his own secrets – he, too, is not in sync with their rural North Carolina hometown – and he has a particularly strong bond with his grand-niece, whom he accepts wholeheartedly.

There are several twists and turns in this sometimes elegiac book, and I would not want to provide unnecessary spoilers. The book is well worth reading for many reasons; the first is that it provides the only in-depth look of synesthesia I recall in my many years of reading. For example, Linda says, “I sometimes would crave a word. For me, there was, and still is, an appreciable distinction between hearing the word said and saying it for myself, though both would produce the same incomings. It was the difference between being served a good meal and having to cook one for myself.”

Another reason: Bitter In The Mouth is a wonderful examination of loneliness and yearning for love, as in this differentiation between the missing and the void: “The void was the person, place or thing that was never there in the first place. The missing existed but was no longer present. One was theoretical loss. The other was actual. Which was worse?” Both the missing and the void are explored in their various manifestations.

At times, the intrusions of North Carolina history halt the forward progression of the novel. And the ending is a little too wrapped up. Yet it is still a fascinating look at the experience of being an outsider within a dysfunctional family: an acerbic and infantilizing grandmother, a “respectable” father, a distant mother in the honeyed south.
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Mar 04, 2011 Alicia rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm glad that I didn't read the reviews for this book before I read it. The reviews gave me the impression that it was the younger, more homely sister among siblings, as compared to The Book of Salt. However, I really liked this book. The first half was a rolling bike ride through Linda Hammerick's childhood and introduction to the main characters. The language was beautiful, if the not the painful relationships between the characters. An estranged mother and father, a grandmother with no filter...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Kellie Uhrig rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you have been a frequent recipient of my verbal book reviews, you know that many times I enjoy the first half of a book much more than the latter portion. Sometimes people tell me, "well, you should write your own book, then." But I'm not creative, just critical. I really liked the first half to two-thirds of this book. And I was very much taken in by the twist that you get around the mid-point. But Toward the end I just started to feel like the author was trying to do WAY TOO much. I'm not i...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Vy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the middle of this book. I liked almost all the characters, and I was drawn in to the story. I carried this book with me, hoping for a few moments here or there to learn what would happen next. I was actually disappointed when I found no line at all on my errand to the post office because I was sure I'd be able to get a few more pages in while waiting!

The beginning was a bit slow, and it took some time to get used to the author's habit of coming back to the same people and event...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nov-dec-2010

Although Bitter in the Mouth may not, ultimately, engage the reader as much as the lyrical Book of Salt, critics agreed that Truong's second novel is original, poetic, and compelling in its own right. Complex and layered, it is a coming-of-age tale about the search for identity, family, and human connection. Yet reviewers expressed reservations about the very parts that make the novel unique. While some thought the premise (synesthesia) clever, a few found Linda's dialogue labored, distracting,...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Lolly LKH rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel is incredible. Linda has synaesthesia, she tastes words. As you read, you see it is both a gift and a curse. Bitter in the Mouth is about so much more than Synaesthesia though. It is complicated relationships, secrets, bigotry and all those things are written in a believable way. Linda's uncle BABY HARPER was such a beautiful character that his story just made me ache. I haven't read anything quite this strange in years. There are moments when reading the tastes that come to Linda's t...more

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Sep 07, 2010 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Monique Truong's "Bitter in the Mouth" is the story of Linda Hammerick, a young woman growing up in the tiny town of Boiling Springs, North Carolian. Linda has a type of synesthesia (where senses become confused with one another) in which words that she speaks or hears have particular tastes for her.

Linda is closest to her Great-Uncle Harper and her friend Kelly; her relationship with parents Thomas and Deanne is puzzling to her and to others, for reasons that are revealed as the story progresse...more

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May 27, 2011 Alayne Bushey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Linda Hammerick grew up in small-town Boiling Springs, North Carolina, always knowing she was a little different from everyone else. To her, words have tastes. The sound of mother brings the flavor of chocolate milk to her mouth, even if her mother is anything but comforting and sweet. The name of the neighbor boy evokes a palate of orange sherbet, and hearing her own name the earthy tang of fresh mint. Bitter in the Mouth is the story of Linda’s life with these never-ending incoming tastes.

At i...more Linda Hammerick grew up in small-town Boiling Springs, North Carolina, always knowing she was a little different from everyone else. To her, words have tastes. The sound of mother brings the flavor of chocolate milk to her mouth, even if her mother is anything but comforting and sweet. The name of the neighbor boy evokes a palate of orange sherbet, and hearing her own name the earthy tang of fresh mint. Bitter in the Mouth is the story of Linda’s life with these never-ending incoming tastes.

At its core, Bitter in the Mouth is a beautiful novel, the words are soft and flow sweetly around Linda who is a character we can appreciate and enjoy. We’re given tidbits of her childhood, from meeting her best friend via letters, to the instant bond she shares with her great-uncle, to the abhorrence she feels for her absent mother and abrasive grandmother. I enjoyed the relationships Truong developed amongst Linda and the others. I only wish the whole book had been as cohesive as its main artery.

There are major parts of Linda’s story that we’re not told about in the beginning; this is a common tool of writing, but when those pieces of information are revealed later in the novel, it’s less of an unveiling and more of a brick to the head. Basically, it left me wondering why the choice to hide so much crucial detail until the very end. A similar conundrum were strange threads that magically appeared throughout the novel, but had no connection to anything other than North Carolina. The Wright brothers and their first flights, the legend of Virginia Dare, and a story about George Horton, a poet and slave. I literally have no idea why these characters or stories were involved. If there’s a reason for them, other than abstraction, it’s complete lost on me.

The other complaint I have about Bitter in the Mouth is a technical one. I know the author is trying to explain the tastes that Linda experiences when she says or hears a particular word, but the way these tastes are connected to the words is distracting. For every sentence spoken aloud, a specific taste is attached to each provoking word in italics. For example: momchocolatemilk, Lindamint, Wadeorangesherbertboy. This makes for a distracting and often halting flow of reading when full sentences are constructed this way. Either the sentence’s meaning is lost, or if you choose to gloss over the italics, the taste is lost. I have no better solution to this problem, but it’s sad that the connection between word and taste fell flat for me.

In general I really enjoyed the majority of Truong’s writing, I think she created a wonderfully realistic, yet unique character and world around Linda. There’s so much more to her story than just the synesthesia she experiences with words. There are certain things about Bitter in the Mouth that I did not love so much, but I lived through them and would still recommend this novel to those who might be intrigued by the premise.

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Jun 08, 2012 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century-fiction, reading-group-pick

I was completely enchanted by Monique Truong's first novel, The Book of Salt. Of course, it was set in Paris, with a fictional Vietnamese immigrant who served as cook to Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas. So tasty.

Bitter in the Mouth is set in the American south, but as I know from William Faulkner, the south can be another country to a northerner like me. In that area of the United States they have their own customs, including a finely honed talent for not noticing the most obvious matters when...more
I was completely enchanted by Monique Truong's first novel, The Book of Salt. Of course, it was set in Paris, with a fictional Vietnamese immigrant who served as cook to Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas. So tasty.

Bitter in the Mouth is set in the American south, but as I know from William Faulkner, the south can be another country to a northerner like me. In that area of the United States they have their own customs, including a finely honed talent for not noticing the most obvious matters when they don't fit the customs. Women who marry but don't have children, anyone who drinks too much, homosexuality, any other race than white, women who break the mold, are just a few of those matters of which one may not speak, except by way of gossip, alluding, or backstabbing remarks.

Linda grows up knowing she was adopted, knowing that her adopted mother does not love her, depending on her father and uncle for love, closeness and any happiness there is to be found. She is a character for a reader to admire: highly intelligent, a reader herself, in a love/hate relationship with words. She and her best friend Kelly have written letters to each other since grade school, even when they lived just a few houses apart. But Linda has auditory-gustatory synethesia, a "secret sense" that causes her to taste words, sometimes a blessing, often a curse.

Much happens in such a medium length novel. The writing made me feel respected and intelligent as a reader. I love that approbation from a novelist. The coming-of-age, the long slow process of learning about herself, the stratagems Linda adopts in order to survive, are all presented from Linda's viewpoint and revealed to the reader only as she gains understanding about her life and the people in it.

Monique Truong says she used To Kill A Mockingbird and Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms as inspiration as she wrote Bitter in the Mouth. I'm glad I didn't know this before I read the book, but knowing it afterwards explains why I felt so much familiarity with her characters.

The end of the book, where Linda makes her peace with life, was a bit too melodramatic for me. a little too spelled out in terms of what she, and therefore the reader, realized. I would have preferred a few more rough edges remaining. But getting to that point surely made a satisfying and moving story.(less)

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Feb 20, 2011 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think the careful revelation of important pieces of Linda's story is so well done. Her synesthesia drives me crazy. I know it drove her crazy too, but having to read so many sentences with the tastes each word evokes all mixed in...too much. I like the character, and love Baby Harper, Linda's great uncle. Still reading...but I'm just not sure if this works. Talked about it at book club and there was such mixed reaction. It made for a great discussion. Lots of confusion about why so much South...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

***I had to go back and move up to 4 stars just because of how well it was written and the wonderful organization. Maybe 3.75 would be more accurate.

This book was first described to me as being about "a girl who experiences a different taste for each word she hears." And while Linda, the main character of this novel, does have synesthesia, the book is hardly focused on it. The book is more of a coming-or-age story than anything, and I definitely liked it, I just don't know that it's memorable: 3...more ***I had to go back and move up to 4 stars just because of how well it was written and the wonderful organization. Maybe 3.75 would be more accurate.

This book was first described to me as being about "a girl who experiences a different taste for each word she hears." And while Linda, the main character of this novel, does have synesthesia, the book is hardly focused on it. The book is more of a coming-or-age story than anything, and I definitely liked it, I just don't know that it's memorable: 3.5 stars.

WHAT I LIKED
I definitely appreciated the writing in the book, and I would be interested in reading more by Monique Truong. I was impressed by the author's abitity to weave in and out of time-frames in Linda's life so effortlessly. It never felt choppy or disconnected going through Linda's childhood in a non-chronological fashion. There was a very natural flow that made this book easy to read (less than a week for me) and enjoyable.

I also liked the characters. They are not your typical sterotypes, but rich and interesting characters that you would want to meet. Reading about Linda and Kelly's relationship made me reminisce about my childhood best-friend.

I loved that as I was reading, I really felt curious about the relationship between Linda and DeAnne -- that this was the weakest, most frustrating aspect of the story. And in the end, this was the real crux of the story. It was fleshed-out and explained in a surprising and interesting way that satisfied me as a reader.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I didn't like that Linda seemed to have absolutely no joy and happiness in her life! She seemed quite melancholy about everything. I could definitely see her wearing black all the time. And I could understand why: just about everything bad you can imagine happens to this poor girl and the people around her. I don't like books that have heightened drama to the extent that it feels like a soap opera (unexpected deaths, affairs, illegitimate children: rinse, repeat and add a dash of homosexuality and racism to really provoke the reader). It gets a little trite after a while and loses its effect.

I also would have liked to see more of the transformation of DeAnne to "DWH".

*SPOILER*
I was interested by how much the fact of Linda being Asian totally caught me off-guard, and seemed to explain more of the rift between her and her adopted mother -- which was explained in more depth at the end of the book. Did not see that one coming at all!(less)

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Sep 30, 2011 Anna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Loved this book. I was taken in on the first page. I can't think of the right word to describe her prose and unique point of view. No one word seems exactly right...exquisite? quirky? poignant? elegant? singular? soigne? funny? I liked this book on so many levels. Her craftsmanship as a writer was a delight. I loved how her story unfolded. There were clues along the way so the revelations did not come as a complete surprise. I like the South. I thought the author must have spent time there to un...more

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Sep 28, 2010 Kay Wright rated it 4 of 5 stars

By now I should be tired of comming of age stories but this one has several surprises I did not see coming. The narrative bounces between today and Linda's childhood in North Carolina. The allusions (on top of many direct references) to Mockingbird are constant, the father is a lawyer who tousles her hair, the great uncle is Dill grown up, the cold female character like Scout's aunt. Someone even asks "Who is Boo Radley?" meaning which person in her household. Linda's answer, coming late in the...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Kathryn rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am still astonished and overwhelm ed bythis author's ability to clearly talk about the rape
of young girls; and to even acknowledge how indifferent and blind families were to knowing
what was happening to their young girls - i don't recall anywhere reading about this time in a
young girls life
her love of her girlfriend and of the awakening feelings of body and femalness - apart from
her amazing -totallllllllly heart stopping command of language and place - i can not and could
not put it down and r...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Lesley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, rhbc

This is not an easy book to read, not because of the language or anything like that it was just a struggle. This was not only because it seemed a little disjointed but also due to the italics which represented taste of some words in the dialogue.

I had read maybe a third of the book and I had given up and had no intention of finishing it. You know it's bad when you'd rather clean a strangers house than continue reading a book. After hearing what others had to say about it, I figured I'd read jus...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Sheila Guevin rated it 3 of 5 stars

While I appreciated the story line and the idea of people for whom words have taste or music has color is fascinating, I found the writing itself almost tedious to read. Though reading a word and a taste together gave you a sense of how one might be handicapped by such a condition, it overpowered the story... for me. Instead, I just wanted to get past each chapter so I could move on to the end. Had it been a movie, the fast forward button would have been working overtime. It is difficult to say...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Ciji W rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 10, 2012 Kathy McC. Mc.C rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a difficult book to review. I absolutely loved the writing style of Truong and have added her first novel to my TBR list. Characters were well developed, but I found the plot to be very disjointed. Perhaps if I could have read it in one afternoon, it might have flowed more smoothly. But there were several sub plots that could have been main plots. They were never fully developed as such and I found myself wondering what they all had to do with each other until the vey end of the novel. E...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Amy Bradley rated it 2 of 5 stars

On the cover is a beatiful magnolia and the book is set in North Carolina which are two positives for me. Boy was I disappointed. The main character's grandmother says some memorable words on her death bed that leads the main character on a search for who she is. She has synaesthesia so she tastes words. I don't really know what this added to the story other than it made it hard to read. "Lindamint, youcannedgreenbeans may have forTriscuitgotten this, but youcannedgreenbeans had gone off to Yale...more

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Sep 24, 2010 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, contemporary, southern

Monique Truong's Bitter in the Mouth is an elegantly written novel that expands the world of Southern literature with its Vietnamese narrator, Linda(mint). In an age of increasingly globalization and migration, Truong challenges the typical definition of Southerner.

I loved the varied relationships in the book, from the very real girlhood friendship between Linda and Kelly to Linda seeking solace with her great uncle Baby Harper. Linda struggles with being an outsider while grappling with a cond...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Jean rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: two-stars

Growing up in Boiling Springs North Carolina, Linda Hammerick believed she was different.She navigated her way through childhood with the help of her great uncle Baby Harper who is gay and loves to dance and her best friend Kelly with whom Linda exchanges daily letters.
Linda can taste words on her tongue and this part of the story I found distracting as her words are interspersed with tastes, for instance. pleaselemonjuice. I found myself skipping the words that had tastes attached to them and t...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Maybe a 3 1/2* book, really. Some things about it were 4 or 5 stars, but as a whole, I just can't rate the book that high. It took me over a month to read this book (which is a long time for me) and I almost gave up a couple times. Sometimes I would be completely engrossed, and then I would put it down for a week or 10 days while I read something else.

I did enjoy the author's writing style and she does a wonderful job evoking the feelings of childhood - I actually felt compelled to look up my gi...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Hilary added it

Shelves: contemporary

Contains Spoilers::: Once the reader adjusts to the dialect of the narrator, who finds that spoken words create a distinctive taste in her mouth (synesthesia), you are launched into a fascinating story of a young woman's search for identity and family, as she reveals the secrets bound up in her history. Linda (or Lindamint) is a unique character who has never been in sync with her North Carolinian family. Late in the novel, it is revealed that Linda was adopted. The novel is intended for adult a...more

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About Monique Truong

Monique T.D. Truong (born 1968 in Saigon, South Vietnam) is a Vietnamese American writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Truong left Vietnam for the United States in 1975. She served in the past as an associate fiction editor for the Asian Pacific American Journal, a literary publication of the Asian American Workshop based in New York City.

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Books by Monique Truong

Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World (An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction--Revised and Updated)

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Quotes from Bitter in the Mouth

“WE all need a story of where we came from and how we got here.” — 3 people liked it

“After a week's worth of failed fairy tales—stories that made my eyelids flutter open and not shut—my father tried telling me stories that belonged only to him. Thomas told me of an island off the coast of a different world. On this island, there stood a city whose buildings were made of glass. He told me that at the heart of this city was a forest with trees, ponds and a lake, swans and horses, and even a small castle. He told me that the streets of the city were filled with bright yellow cars that you hopped in and out of at will and that would take you wherever you wanted to go. In this city, there were sidewalks overflowing with people from the whole world over who wanted so much to be there. He told me of its neighborhoods, with names like Greenwich Village and Harlem and Chinatown. At the nucleus of these stories was my father, and spinning around him was the city of New York. Long before I would see them in photographs or in real life, my father had given me the white crown lights of the Chrysler Building and the shining needle of the Empire State.” — 1 person liked it

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