Stephen Hong Sohn's Blog, page 10
November 7, 2023
A Review of Maya Shanbhag Lang’s What We Carry (The Dial Press, 2020)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am here to wax rhapsodic about Maya Shanbhag Lang’s What We Carry (The Dial Press, 2020)! We’ll let the official marketing description get us started, as always: “Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya’s mother had always been a source of support—until Maya became a mother herself. Then the parent who had once been so capable and attentive became suddenly and inexplicably unavailable. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer’s. Unable to remember or keep track of the stories she once told her daughter—stories about her life in India, why she immigrated, and her experience of motherhood—Maya’s mother divulges secrets about her past that force Maya to reexamine their relationship. It becomes clear that Maya never really knew her mother, despite their close bond. Absorbing, moving, and raw, What We Carry is a memoir about mothers and daughters, lies and truths, receiving and giving care, and how we cannot grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us. It is a beautiful examination of the weight we shoulder as women and an exploration of how to finally set our burdens down.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Lang’s memoir is the way in which Lang is pushed to move past the illusions that parents can generate, sometimes to protect their own children. This aspect of what makes this memoir both so productive and heartbreaking at the same time. The myth that Lang’s mother creates of herself is the very one that Lang must deconstruct in order for both of them to come to grips with each other’s lives. Of course, this process is further complicated by the Alzheimer’s diagnosis that Lang’s mother receives. The other element that I absolutely reveled in was the meticulous detail with which Lang depicts the harrowing, yet intimate process of care work. As the conditions of Lang’s mother worsens, Lang and her husband (along with their young child) decide to take her in to keep an eye on her. This period is both one in which they can occasionally cement their bonds as family, but Alzheimer’s continually comes to undermine any lasting sense of stability. Eventually, Lang’s mother must be put into a long-term nursing care facility. An unflinching account of care work anchored by Lang’s stellar prose and keen insights.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am here to wax rhapsodic about Maya Shanbhag Lang’s What We Carry (The Dial Press, 2020)! We’ll let the official marketing description get us started, as always: “Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya’s mother had always been a source of support—until Maya became a mother herself. Then the parent who had once been so capable and attentive became suddenly and inexplicably unavailable. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer’s. Unable to remember or keep track of the stories she once told her daughter—stories about her life in India, why she immigrated, and her experience of motherhood—Maya’s mother divulges secrets about her past that force Maya to reexamine their relationship. It becomes clear that Maya never really knew her mother, despite their close bond. Absorbing, moving, and raw, What We Carry is a memoir about mothers and daughters, lies and truths, receiving and giving care, and how we cannot grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us. It is a beautiful examination of the weight we shoulder as women and an exploration of how to finally set our burdens down.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Lang’s memoir is the way in which Lang is pushed to move past the illusions that parents can generate, sometimes to protect their own children. This aspect of what makes this memoir both so productive and heartbreaking at the same time. The myth that Lang’s mother creates of herself is the very one that Lang must deconstruct in order for both of them to come to grips with each other’s lives. Of course, this process is further complicated by the Alzheimer’s diagnosis that Lang’s mother receives. The other element that I absolutely reveled in was the meticulous detail with which Lang depicts the harrowing, yet intimate process of care work. As the conditions of Lang’s mother worsens, Lang and her husband (along with their young child) decide to take her in to keep an eye on her. This period is both one in which they can occasionally cement their bonds as family, but Alzheimer’s continually comes to undermine any lasting sense of stability. Eventually, Lang’s mother must be put into a long-term nursing care facility. An unflinching account of care work anchored by Lang’s stellar prose and keen insights.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Kat Chow’s Seeing Ghosts (Grand Central Publishing, 2021)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am covering Kat Chow’s Seeing Ghosts (Grand Central Publishing, 2021)! The official marketing description provides us with this context: “Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She worried constantly about her parents dying—especially her mother. A vivacious and mischievous woman, Kat's mother made a morbid joke that would haunt her for years to come: when she died, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her. After her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together a story of the fallout of grief that follows her extended family as they emigrate from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America. Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to reclaim and tell your family’s story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become facing loss.”
I loved this text! Really tough material that covers the multifaceted process of mourning. I appreciated how Chow was able to weave in not only her family’s history but also makes major references to other Asian American writers and scholars (like Yung Wing, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and Anne Anlin Cheng). The memoir first covers the loss of the author’s mother, but then gradually shifts toward the family’s evolution in the wake of that death. Kat and her two sisters must navigate a life without their mother, while also finding ways to connect to their father, who at times can be fairly opaque. The nuanced way in which Chow depicts this relationship between three daughters and their father was especially poignant. The concluding arc turns us transnationally, as the daughters and their father travel to Cuba, hoping for some closure. A breathtaking work of mourning and partial recoveries.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am covering Kat Chow’s Seeing Ghosts (Grand Central Publishing, 2021)! The official marketing description provides us with this context: “Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She worried constantly about her parents dying—especially her mother. A vivacious and mischievous woman, Kat's mother made a morbid joke that would haunt her for years to come: when she died, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her. After her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together a story of the fallout of grief that follows her extended family as they emigrate from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America. Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to reclaim and tell your family’s story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become facing loss.”
I loved this text! Really tough material that covers the multifaceted process of mourning. I appreciated how Chow was able to weave in not only her family’s history but also makes major references to other Asian American writers and scholars (like Yung Wing, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and Anne Anlin Cheng). The memoir first covers the loss of the author’s mother, but then gradually shifts toward the family’s evolution in the wake of that death. Kat and her two sisters must navigate a life without their mother, while also finding ways to connect to their father, who at times can be fairly opaque. The nuanced way in which Chow depicts this relationship between three daughters and their father was especially poignant. The concluding arc turns us transnationally, as the daughters and their father travel to Cuba, hoping for some closure. A breathtaking work of mourning and partial recoveries.
Buy the Book Here
comments
A Review of Jane Pek’s The Verifiers (Knopf Doubleday 2022)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I cover Jane Pek’s The Verifiers (Knopf Doubleday 2022)! Let’s let the official marketing description get us off the ground here: “Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.”
This novel was a really surprising read. I finished it over three or so nights and was continually surprised in the way that it continued to evolve. Pek is clearly a big fan of mysteries, much like her protagonist Claudia, who is our plucky first person storyteller. Pek knows how to create the mystery, draw out the mystery, throw in a bunch of red herrings, and then complicate the mystery even further. There are a bunch of references to canonical novels, so that’s another great element. The conclusion to this one is a bit open-ended, and it makes you wonder if Claudia could exist at the core of an entire series. The other element that I really enjoyed was Pek’s deep dive into apps and artificial intelligence in relation to matchmaking. I didn’t expect such a robust engagement with the technological side of the matchmaking world, and I came to find so much to sink my readerly teeth into. A wonderfully plotted detective novel with an engaging first person narrator. I definitely recommend this one for a plane ride or a day at the beach or pool.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I cover Jane Pek’s The Verifiers (Knopf Doubleday 2022)! Let’s let the official marketing description get us off the ground here: “Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.”
This novel was a really surprising read. I finished it over three or so nights and was continually surprised in the way that it continued to evolve. Pek is clearly a big fan of mysteries, much like her protagonist Claudia, who is our plucky first person storyteller. Pek knows how to create the mystery, draw out the mystery, throw in a bunch of red herrings, and then complicate the mystery even further. There are a bunch of references to canonical novels, so that’s another great element. The conclusion to this one is a bit open-ended, and it makes you wonder if Claudia could exist at the core of an entire series. The other element that I really enjoyed was Pek’s deep dive into apps and artificial intelligence in relation to matchmaking. I didn’t expect such a robust engagement with the technological side of the matchmaking world, and I came to find so much to sink my readerly teeth into. A wonderfully plotted detective novel with an engaging first person narrator. I definitely recommend this one for a plane ride or a day at the beach or pool.
Buy the Book Here
comments
November 6, 2023
A Review of Ava Chin’s Mott Street (Penguin Press, 2023)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I write this review after having read Ava Chin’s Mott Street about five months ago or so! I had a reason to return to it in mid-October because Fordham University chose Chin as the Mary Higgins Clark Chair. Chin thus came to Fordham University’s Lincoln Center to read from this memoir/ biographical recovery work (and let’s be clear, it’s multigenre in the most productive way possible). Due to COVID issues and general overwork, it has been some time since I have gone to a reading and seen someone speak in person about their creative writing. The timing of it was perfect since Fordham had recently established Asian American Studies as a minor and program. I attended the event with two new minors and a third student interested in possibly minoring as well. To have Chin speak about the history of Asian American exclusion as routed through her own family dynamics was truly empowering. The event was structured such that, toward the end, a student was able to ask some pre-determined questions about Chin’s process. Since this book covered around 4 generations of Chin’s family, she had to complete not only years of archival research but also interview family members, some of whom she had been estranged from and others whom she found resistant to her project. In this respect, Chin had to overcome a number of obstacles in order to just get the raw materials from which to create this work. The creative, mixed-genre work is absolutely epic in scope and breathtaking in its expansiveness. It adds so much to the existing catalogue our rich field of Asian American literary studies. It would certainly serve as an excellent comparison point to other memoirs, including, most notably, Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men. The resonances between the two are undeniable, but one might say that Chin takes it a couple of steps further only insofar as Chin is able to track so many sectors of her family across multiple generations. The challenge for this kind of work is that she must continually toggle between multiple storylines and temporalities, but the framing mechanism involving her connection to Mott Street is of course the emotional touchstone to what unfolds. Indeed, Chin occasionally seems to see spirits connected to her ancestors, harbingers then that her work is being supported by the ghosts of the past. An impressive work, one that I’m sure that many cultural critics will find their way to and will engage as a site of analysis.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I write this review after having read Ava Chin’s Mott Street about five months ago or so! I had a reason to return to it in mid-October because Fordham University chose Chin as the Mary Higgins Clark Chair. Chin thus came to Fordham University’s Lincoln Center to read from this memoir/ biographical recovery work (and let’s be clear, it’s multigenre in the most productive way possible). Due to COVID issues and general overwork, it has been some time since I have gone to a reading and seen someone speak in person about their creative writing. The timing of it was perfect since Fordham had recently established Asian American Studies as a minor and program. I attended the event with two new minors and a third student interested in possibly minoring as well. To have Chin speak about the history of Asian American exclusion as routed through her own family dynamics was truly empowering. The event was structured such that, toward the end, a student was able to ask some pre-determined questions about Chin’s process. Since this book covered around 4 generations of Chin’s family, she had to complete not only years of archival research but also interview family members, some of whom she had been estranged from and others whom she found resistant to her project. In this respect, Chin had to overcome a number of obstacles in order to just get the raw materials from which to create this work. The creative, mixed-genre work is absolutely epic in scope and breathtaking in its expansiveness. It adds so much to the existing catalogue our rich field of Asian American literary studies. It would certainly serve as an excellent comparison point to other memoirs, including, most notably, Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men. The resonances between the two are undeniable, but one might say that Chin takes it a couple of steps further only insofar as Chin is able to track so many sectors of her family across multiple generations. The challenge for this kind of work is that she must continually toggle between multiple storylines and temporalities, but the framing mechanism involving her connection to Mott Street is of course the emotional touchstone to what unfolds. Indeed, Chin occasionally seems to see spirits connected to her ancestors, harbingers then that her work is being supported by the ghosts of the past. An impressive work, one that I’m sure that many cultural critics will find their way to and will engage as a site of analysis.
Buy the Book Here
comments
A Review of Victoria Chang’s Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021)
Posted by:
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am here to cover Victoria Chang’s brilliantly crafted Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021). Let’s let Milkweed’s official marketing description gives us some more key information: “For Victoria Chang, memory ‘isn’t something that blooms, but something that bleeds internally.’ It is willed, summoned, and dragged to the surface. The remembrances in this collection of letters are founded in the fragments of stories her mother shared reluctantly, and the silences of her father, who first would not and then could not share more. They are whittled and sculpted from an archive of family relics: a marriage license, a letter, a visa petition, a photograph. And, just as often, they are built on the questions that can no longer be answered. Dear Memory is not a transcription but a process of simultaneously shaping and being shaped, knowing that when a writer dips their pen into history, what emerges is poetry. In carefully crafted collages and missives on trauma, loss, and Americanness, Victoria Chang grasps on to a sense of self that grief threatens to dissipate. In letters to family, past teachers, and fellow poets, as the imagination, Dear Memory offers a model for what it looks like to find ourselves in our histories.”
I absolutely adored this particular work. It’s really a kind of poetry work in epistolary form. Chang is the author of a number of other poetry collections, and her signature lyric style is apparent here, even in the prose narratives that populate Dear Memory. At first, the epistolary poems seem more directed to immediate family members, but Dear Memory certainly branches out, as the infinite ways in which we grieve are made apparent. The archival traces of Chang’s family are all over this book, but Chang makes us realize how finite our access to the past can be, and that we never fully know our family members. The design quality of this work is impressive: the images are scanned at very high resolution, which are important because many of the archival documents that Chang includes are government files, including things like passports, social security cards, and marriage licenses. You can see the ravages of time upon so many of these items, but some crucial information is retained, to give the lyric speaker a sense of the past, however partial. A work full of melancholy but also of possibility. We see those sites of connection and constitution through and by the networks the lyric speaker creates with other poets and writers, teachers and keen listeners. A profound work that inhabits the fecund, yet disorienting space of loss.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
In this lightning review, I am here to cover Victoria Chang’s brilliantly crafted Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021). Let’s let Milkweed’s official marketing description gives us some more key information: “For Victoria Chang, memory ‘isn’t something that blooms, but something that bleeds internally.’ It is willed, summoned, and dragged to the surface. The remembrances in this collection of letters are founded in the fragments of stories her mother shared reluctantly, and the silences of her father, who first would not and then could not share more. They are whittled and sculpted from an archive of family relics: a marriage license, a letter, a visa petition, a photograph. And, just as often, they are built on the questions that can no longer be answered. Dear Memory is not a transcription but a process of simultaneously shaping and being shaped, knowing that when a writer dips their pen into history, what emerges is poetry. In carefully crafted collages and missives on trauma, loss, and Americanness, Victoria Chang grasps on to a sense of self that grief threatens to dissipate. In letters to family, past teachers, and fellow poets, as the imagination, Dear Memory offers a model for what it looks like to find ourselves in our histories.”
I absolutely adored this particular work. It’s really a kind of poetry work in epistolary form. Chang is the author of a number of other poetry collections, and her signature lyric style is apparent here, even in the prose narratives that populate Dear Memory. At first, the epistolary poems seem more directed to immediate family members, but Dear Memory certainly branches out, as the infinite ways in which we grieve are made apparent. The archival traces of Chang’s family are all over this book, but Chang makes us realize how finite our access to the past can be, and that we never fully know our family members. The design quality of this work is impressive: the images are scanned at very high resolution, which are important because many of the archival documents that Chang includes are government files, including things like passports, social security cards, and marriage licenses. You can see the ravages of time upon so many of these items, but some crucial information is retained, to give the lyric speaker a sense of the past, however partial. A work full of melancholy but also of possibility. We see those sites of connection and constitution through and by the networks the lyric speaker creates with other poets and writers, teachers and keen listeners. A profound work that inhabits the fecund, yet disorienting space of loss.
Buy the Book Here
comments
November 3, 2023
A Review of Michelle Min Sterling’s Camp Zero (Atria, 2023)
Posted by:
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Michelle Min Sterling’s Camp Zero (Atria, 2023) is one of those books I took a chance on to bring with me on an airplane flight. I tend to pick books I think will be incredibly immersive, something to take me away from the cramped seating! Sterling’s debut did not disappoint. Let’s let the official marketing description give us some information: “In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is breaking ground on a building project called Camp Zero, intended to be the beginning of a new way of life. A clever and determined young woman code-named Rose is offered a chance to join the Blooms, a group hired to entertain the men in camp—but her real mission is to secretly monitor the mercurial architect in charge. In return, she’ll receive a home for her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother and herself. Rose quickly secures the trust of her target, only to discover that everyone has a hidden agenda, and nothing is as it seems. Through skillfully braided perspectives, including those of a young professor longing to escape his wealthy family and an all-woman military research unit struggling for survival at a climate station, the fate of Camp Zero’s inhabitants reaches a stunning crescendo. Atmospheric, fiercely original, and utterly gripping, Camp Zero is an electrifying page-turner and a masterful exploration of who and what will survive in a warming world, and how falling in love and building community can be the most daring acts of all.”
This novel had an intricate plot and interspersed narrative perspectives. One of the more disappointing characters was none other than an elite-turned-English teacher who realizes that his idealistic desires to teach art in a remote location turn out at best to be misguided and potentially deadly at worst. A side plot involving a group of female scientists turns out to be an important narrative thread, which comes together in satisfying fashion by the novel’s conclusion. Of course, the emotional center of the text is none other than Rose, who we see is spurred into the titular camp with the hope that she can help her mother out. Rose has one form of capital that she’s been using to help get her through a science fictional dystopian future: her beauty, which she wields to get her access to better jobs as well as better resources for herself and her mother. Perhaps the most intriguing element of this text is that it places way more tension at the US-Canadian border due to climate change. As the weather patterns shift, more and more of Canada becomes habitable, while parts of the United States become flooded. In this respect, Sterling’s work treads the well-worn cautionary tale of dystopian narratives in which the science fictional future seems not far off from our lived reality.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Michelle Min Sterling’s Camp Zero (Atria, 2023) is one of those books I took a chance on to bring with me on an airplane flight. I tend to pick books I think will be incredibly immersive, something to take me away from the cramped seating! Sterling’s debut did not disappoint. Let’s let the official marketing description give us some information: “In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is breaking ground on a building project called Camp Zero, intended to be the beginning of a new way of life. A clever and determined young woman code-named Rose is offered a chance to join the Blooms, a group hired to entertain the men in camp—but her real mission is to secretly monitor the mercurial architect in charge. In return, she’ll receive a home for her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother and herself. Rose quickly secures the trust of her target, only to discover that everyone has a hidden agenda, and nothing is as it seems. Through skillfully braided perspectives, including those of a young professor longing to escape his wealthy family and an all-woman military research unit struggling for survival at a climate station, the fate of Camp Zero’s inhabitants reaches a stunning crescendo. Atmospheric, fiercely original, and utterly gripping, Camp Zero is an electrifying page-turner and a masterful exploration of who and what will survive in a warming world, and how falling in love and building community can be the most daring acts of all.”
This novel had an intricate plot and interspersed narrative perspectives. One of the more disappointing characters was none other than an elite-turned-English teacher who realizes that his idealistic desires to teach art in a remote location turn out at best to be misguided and potentially deadly at worst. A side plot involving a group of female scientists turns out to be an important narrative thread, which comes together in satisfying fashion by the novel’s conclusion. Of course, the emotional center of the text is none other than Rose, who we see is spurred into the titular camp with the hope that she can help her mother out. Rose has one form of capital that she’s been using to help get her through a science fictional dystopian future: her beauty, which she wields to get her access to better jobs as well as better resources for herself and her mother. Perhaps the most intriguing element of this text is that it places way more tension at the US-Canadian border due to climate change. As the weather patterns shift, more and more of Canada becomes habitable, while parts of the United States become flooded. In this respect, Sterling’s work treads the well-worn cautionary tale of dystopian narratives in which the science fictional future seems not far off from our lived reality.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Gina Chung’s Sea Change (Vintage, 2023)
Posted by:
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
If Gina Chung’s debut Sea Change (Vintage, 2023) signals a “sea change” that might be occurring in genre fictions, then I’m all here for it. Gina Chung’s work is an interesting amalgam of family, friendship, and relationship melodrama, Asian American literature, climate fiction, and science fiction all rolled into one. Let’s let the marketing description do some work for it: “Ro is stuck. She's just entered her thirties, she's estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at the aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeño). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro's only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro's last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager. When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction. Wading through memories of her youth, Ro realizes she can either lose herself in the undertow of reminiscence, or finally come to terms with her childhood trauma, recommit to those around her, and find her place in an ever-changing world.”
Chung is able to pack a ton into this novel in a way I wasn’t at first entirely prepared for. Ro, short for Aurora, is our Korean American first person storyteller. This description does an excellent job of catalyzing the main plot dynamics, but I will have to provide some key spoilers, which are actually revealed quite early in the novel, so look away unless you’re okay with being in the know.
Okay, so you find out that Ro’s life is in disarray specifically because her father’s research takes her to a strange area in the ocean called the Bering Vortex, which is Chung’s analogue for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (and those of you who enjoyed Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being should seriously then check this one out). In this case, the Bering Vortex is far more science fictional: the strange alchemy of chemicals, objects, and things in this area has caused environmental change, including in the beings that live there. Lo, short of Dolores the Octopus, is part of the living beings impacted. Chung isn’t intent to state simply that man-made environmental change is just bad. Indeed, in Lo’s case, she has some sort of mutant properties that allow her to change colors in ways that normal octopi can’t. She also seems to have attained a potential level of sentience and engagement that make her unique. But the Bering Vortex isn’t all about these interesting mutations, it’s also a site of great environmental instability, as is evidenced by her father’s disappearance.
The other issue that Chung weaves in is the fact that Ro’s relationship with her boyfriend, Tae, is cut short when he is selected for a competitive space program that will take him to Mars. Part of the ethos of that mission is specifically related to conservation and planetary succor: perhaps humans can establish a colony there that will allow them a second chance at life, especially since Earth seems on a collision course with catastrophe. But these science fictional and cli-fi elements that open the novel will ultimately take a backseat to the contemplative, sly humor that tracks throughout the text, as the impact of these two departures/ruptures ends up rocking Ro’s life. In this sense, part of Chung’s novel is a meditation on grief. The element that best makes this clear is an incredible sequence toward the novel’s conclusion from Ro’s past in which her family had taken a tense trip to Hawaii. In one more idyllic moment, Ro and her father experience the beauty of the sea at night; it recalls, at least for me, that incredible scene at the ending of le’s The Gangster We are All Looking For. You’ll understand more profoundly the loss that has been shaping Ro, her inability to confront Tae’s departure, her struggle to recognize her mother’s need for companionship, and the fact that her closest friendships are also subject to serious, but necessary changes. It is here that Chung stages her most robust negotiation of grief: that we never “move on” from those that we have lost, but that our losses inform how we can still productively traverse a world that is, in the wake of death, so profoundly changed. If there is a minor quibble that I have, as a genre fiction fan, it is simply that I wanted to know more about the Bering Vortex and the circumstances surrounding Ro’s father and his disappearance, but perhaps that is a story for another day. Fortunately for us, Chung already has more in store, with the publication of Green Frog: And Other Stories, so we can feast upon Chung’s prose, once more, quite soon.
Buy Sea Change here
Pre-order Green Frog: And Other Stories here
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
If Gina Chung’s debut Sea Change (Vintage, 2023) signals a “sea change” that might be occurring in genre fictions, then I’m all here for it. Gina Chung’s work is an interesting amalgam of family, friendship, and relationship melodrama, Asian American literature, climate fiction, and science fiction all rolled into one. Let’s let the marketing description do some work for it: “Ro is stuck. She's just entered her thirties, she's estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at the aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeño). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro's only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro's last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager. When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction. Wading through memories of her youth, Ro realizes she can either lose herself in the undertow of reminiscence, or finally come to terms with her childhood trauma, recommit to those around her, and find her place in an ever-changing world.”
Chung is able to pack a ton into this novel in a way I wasn’t at first entirely prepared for. Ro, short for Aurora, is our Korean American first person storyteller. This description does an excellent job of catalyzing the main plot dynamics, but I will have to provide some key spoilers, which are actually revealed quite early in the novel, so look away unless you’re okay with being in the know.
Okay, so you find out that Ro’s life is in disarray specifically because her father’s research takes her to a strange area in the ocean called the Bering Vortex, which is Chung’s analogue for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (and those of you who enjoyed Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being should seriously then check this one out). In this case, the Bering Vortex is far more science fictional: the strange alchemy of chemicals, objects, and things in this area has caused environmental change, including in the beings that live there. Lo, short of Dolores the Octopus, is part of the living beings impacted. Chung isn’t intent to state simply that man-made environmental change is just bad. Indeed, in Lo’s case, she has some sort of mutant properties that allow her to change colors in ways that normal octopi can’t. She also seems to have attained a potential level of sentience and engagement that make her unique. But the Bering Vortex isn’t all about these interesting mutations, it’s also a site of great environmental instability, as is evidenced by her father’s disappearance.
The other issue that Chung weaves in is the fact that Ro’s relationship with her boyfriend, Tae, is cut short when he is selected for a competitive space program that will take him to Mars. Part of the ethos of that mission is specifically related to conservation and planetary succor: perhaps humans can establish a colony there that will allow them a second chance at life, especially since Earth seems on a collision course with catastrophe. But these science fictional and cli-fi elements that open the novel will ultimately take a backseat to the contemplative, sly humor that tracks throughout the text, as the impact of these two departures/ruptures ends up rocking Ro’s life. In this sense, part of Chung’s novel is a meditation on grief. The element that best makes this clear is an incredible sequence toward the novel’s conclusion from Ro’s past in which her family had taken a tense trip to Hawaii. In one more idyllic moment, Ro and her father experience the beauty of the sea at night; it recalls, at least for me, that incredible scene at the ending of le’s The Gangster We are All Looking For. You’ll understand more profoundly the loss that has been shaping Ro, her inability to confront Tae’s departure, her struggle to recognize her mother’s need for companionship, and the fact that her closest friendships are also subject to serious, but necessary changes. It is here that Chung stages her most robust negotiation of grief: that we never “move on” from those that we have lost, but that our losses inform how we can still productively traverse a world that is, in the wake of death, so profoundly changed. If there is a minor quibble that I have, as a genre fiction fan, it is simply that I wanted to know more about the Bering Vortex and the circumstances surrounding Ro’s father and his disappearance, but perhaps that is a story for another day. Fortunately for us, Chung already has more in store, with the publication of Green Frog: And Other Stories, so we can feast upon Chung’s prose, once more, quite soon.
Buy Sea Change here
Pre-order Green Frog: And Other Stories here
comments
A Review of Elysha Chang’s A Quitter’s Paradise (Zando, 2023)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Well, there’s something in the water with Asian American writers exploring the “quitting narrative,” as is evidenced by Elysha Chang’s surprisingly affecting debut A Quitter’s Paradise (Zando, 2023). I read this one on the heels of Katherine Lin’s You Can’t Stay Here Forever, which also involves the main character engaging in a major live pivot that ultimately ends up with her quitting her job as a lawyer. Let’s let the marketing description give us more context for Chang’s novel: “Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she’s keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn’t understand the person you’ve lost? Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present. As Eleanor’s avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous—often hilarious—choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor’s childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning she’s hurtling toward? At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, A Quitter’s Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.”
This novel was a really quirky read; I sometimes didn’t know where the novel would take us, and I especially appreciated that it is filled with quiet surprises. The other thing that the description does not detail, and which is a major part of the plot, even early on, is that Eleanor is engaged in an extramarital affair with someone from her former lab. This relationship, though certainly awkward, anchors the novel emotionally, because we get a fuller sense of Eleanor’s inner turmoil. While she presents a certain picture to her husband, there is clearly so much more going on beneath the surface. In this way, the novel paints a picture involving a character that might be said to be going through an early life crisis. I had just also finished reading Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, and it was interesting to read two books side by side that involved women in traditionally male-dominated spaces like scientific laboratories. You could immediately sense that, for Eleanor, this space is not fulfilling, and that she is desperately seeking a way to address not only her grief (her mother has passed away), but also the fact that she feels especially alone without strong biological anchors. This novel also reminds me of a handful of others involving Asian American women who ultimately quit their Phd programs—Weike Wang’s Chemistry, and Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation—so we’re getting these narratives that truly complicate the model minority stereotype. Chang’s got a really unique style, and I look forward to what she has in store for us next.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Well, there’s something in the water with Asian American writers exploring the “quitting narrative,” as is evidenced by Elysha Chang’s surprisingly affecting debut A Quitter’s Paradise (Zando, 2023). I read this one on the heels of Katherine Lin’s You Can’t Stay Here Forever, which also involves the main character engaging in a major live pivot that ultimately ends up with her quitting her job as a lawyer. Let’s let the marketing description give us more context for Chang’s novel: “Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she’s keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn’t understand the person you’ve lost? Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present. As Eleanor’s avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous—often hilarious—choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor’s childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning she’s hurtling toward? At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, A Quitter’s Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.”
This novel was a really quirky read; I sometimes didn’t know where the novel would take us, and I especially appreciated that it is filled with quiet surprises. The other thing that the description does not detail, and which is a major part of the plot, even early on, is that Eleanor is engaged in an extramarital affair with someone from her former lab. This relationship, though certainly awkward, anchors the novel emotionally, because we get a fuller sense of Eleanor’s inner turmoil. While she presents a certain picture to her husband, there is clearly so much more going on beneath the surface. In this way, the novel paints a picture involving a character that might be said to be going through an early life crisis. I had just also finished reading Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, and it was interesting to read two books side by side that involved women in traditionally male-dominated spaces like scientific laboratories. You could immediately sense that, for Eleanor, this space is not fulfilling, and that she is desperately seeking a way to address not only her grief (her mother has passed away), but also the fact that she feels especially alone without strong biological anchors. This novel also reminds me of a handful of others involving Asian American women who ultimately quit their Phd programs—Weike Wang’s Chemistry, and Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation—so we’re getting these narratives that truly complicate the model minority stereotype. Chang’s got a really unique style, and I look forward to what she has in store for us next.
Buy the Book Here
comments
A Review of David Masumoto’s Secret Harvests (with illustrations by Patricia Wakida) (Red Hen, 2023)
Posted by:
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Wow! I am reviewing David Masumoto’s Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm (with illustrations by Patricia Wakida) (Red Hen Press, 2023), which packs a serious punch. The description on Red Hen’s home page provides us with this description from the author: “I discover a ‘lost’ aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a ‘ward’ of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.”
There is so much to praise about this text. It’s part memoir, part history, and certainly part of a desire to reconstitute Masumoto’s aunt as part of the family. Though the time lost can never fully be recovered, Masumoto takes the time to contextualize the challenges that faced a Japanese American farming family in the early 20th century and why the incarceration experience would result in such an incredible rupture. Masumoto’s steady voice and gift for narrative storytelling guides us throughout. It is clear that this journey is also one in which Masumoto is learning, not only about his family history but also the complications of a disabled existence. In this specific intersection, the memoir adds to the growing discourse in Asian American Studies and literature that brings race and disability together. Patricia Wakida’s relief blockprinting illustrations are extraordinary and truly bring to life the vibrancy of Masumoto’s aunt. In this respect, this publication is also ultimately collaborative. A finely wrought, finely textured memoir of loss and recovery, as well as an elegy to a complex life.
For more on this text, go here.
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Wow! I am reviewing David Masumoto’s Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm (with illustrations by Patricia Wakida) (Red Hen Press, 2023), which packs a serious punch. The description on Red Hen’s home page provides us with this description from the author: “I discover a ‘lost’ aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a ‘ward’ of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.”
There is so much to praise about this text. It’s part memoir, part history, and certainly part of a desire to reconstitute Masumoto’s aunt as part of the family. Though the time lost can never fully be recovered, Masumoto takes the time to contextualize the challenges that faced a Japanese American farming family in the early 20th century and why the incarceration experience would result in such an incredible rupture. Masumoto’s steady voice and gift for narrative storytelling guides us throughout. It is clear that this journey is also one in which Masumoto is learning, not only about his family history but also the complications of a disabled existence. In this specific intersection, the memoir adds to the growing discourse in Asian American Studies and literature that brings race and disability together. Patricia Wakida’s relief blockprinting illustrations are extraordinary and truly bring to life the vibrancy of Masumoto’s aunt. In this respect, this publication is also ultimately collaborative. A finely wrought, finely textured memoir of loss and recovery, as well as an elegy to a complex life.
For more on this text, go here.
comments
A Review of Katherine Lin’s You Can’t Stay Here Forever (Harper, 2023)
Posted by:
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Ah, I am reviewing Katherine Lin’s You Can’t Stay Here Forever (Harper, 2023), which is essentially The White Lotus meets Helen Wan’s The Partner Track. Let’s see why I gave it this description by checking out the marketing block below: “Desperate to obliterate her past, a young widow flees California for the French Riviera in this compelling debut, a tale of loss, rebirth, modern friendship, and romance that blends Sally Rooney’s wryness and psychological insight with Emma Straub's gorgeous scene-setting and rich relationships. Just days after her young, handsome husband dies in a car accident, Ellie Huang discovers that he had a mistress—one of her own colleagues at a prestigious San Francisco law firm. Acting on impulse—or is it grief? rage? Probably all three—Ellie cashes in Ian’s life insurance policy for an extended stay at the luxurious Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France. Accompanying her is her free-spirited best friend, Mable Chou. Ellie hopes that the five-star resort on the French Riviera, with its stunning clientele and floral-scented cocktails, will be a heady escape from the real world. And at first it is. She and Mable meet an intriguing couple, Fauna and Robbie, and as their poolside chats roll into wine-soaked dinners, the four become increasingly intimate. But the sunlit getaway soon turns into a reckoning for Ellie, as long-simmering tensions and uncomfortable truths swirl to the surface.”
If you watched the second season of The White Lotus, you’ll recall the very sticky quadrangle that was one of the major plots. At the same time, Lin’s novel also deals with someone in a law firm. Hence, my equation: The White Lotus + The Partner Track = You Can’t Stay Here Forever. The lazy equation aside: the novel’s incredibly immersive, so much so that I thought about bringing it with me on an airplane flight. I ended up not bringing it because I was already halfway through, and I didn’t want to have to start a new novel and bring two books with me on the plane, so I left it fallow for about a week, then finished it upon my return. The novel’s an interesting meditation on grief and Asian American identity and how grief is the propulsion that encourages Ellie to figure out what it is she actually wants to do. Up to that point, Ellie’s been sort of coasting, as she can kind of line up her life alongside the normative expectations held up for her: continue to move up the corporate ladder, marry well, and you’ve made it. This sort of approach is catastrophically upended by her partner’s death and the discovery that he’s been having an affair. The novel is as much about grieving the illusion of her life as it is about the death of her husband. An engaging and notable debut!
Buy the Book Here
comments
ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
*reviewer’s note: In my aim to cover as much ground and texts as I can, I’m focusing on shorter lightning reviews that get to the gist of my reading experience! As Asian American literature has boomed, my time to read this exponentially growing archive has only diminished. I will do my best, as always!
Ah, I am reviewing Katherine Lin’s You Can’t Stay Here Forever (Harper, 2023), which is essentially The White Lotus meets Helen Wan’s The Partner Track. Let’s see why I gave it this description by checking out the marketing block below: “Desperate to obliterate her past, a young widow flees California for the French Riviera in this compelling debut, a tale of loss, rebirth, modern friendship, and romance that blends Sally Rooney’s wryness and psychological insight with Emma Straub's gorgeous scene-setting and rich relationships. Just days after her young, handsome husband dies in a car accident, Ellie Huang discovers that he had a mistress—one of her own colleagues at a prestigious San Francisco law firm. Acting on impulse—or is it grief? rage? Probably all three—Ellie cashes in Ian’s life insurance policy for an extended stay at the luxurious Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France. Accompanying her is her free-spirited best friend, Mable Chou. Ellie hopes that the five-star resort on the French Riviera, with its stunning clientele and floral-scented cocktails, will be a heady escape from the real world. And at first it is. She and Mable meet an intriguing couple, Fauna and Robbie, and as their poolside chats roll into wine-soaked dinners, the four become increasingly intimate. But the sunlit getaway soon turns into a reckoning for Ellie, as long-simmering tensions and uncomfortable truths swirl to the surface.”
If you watched the second season of The White Lotus, you’ll recall the very sticky quadrangle that was one of the major plots. At the same time, Lin’s novel also deals with someone in a law firm. Hence, my equation: The White Lotus + The Partner Track = You Can’t Stay Here Forever. The lazy equation aside: the novel’s incredibly immersive, so much so that I thought about bringing it with me on an airplane flight. I ended up not bringing it because I was already halfway through, and I didn’t want to have to start a new novel and bring two books with me on the plane, so I left it fallow for about a week, then finished it upon my return. The novel’s an interesting meditation on grief and Asian American identity and how grief is the propulsion that encourages Ellie to figure out what it is she actually wants to do. Up to that point, Ellie’s been sort of coasting, as she can kind of line up her life alongside the normative expectations held up for her: continue to move up the corporate ladder, marry well, and you’ve made it. This sort of approach is catastrophically upended by her partner’s death and the discovery that he’s been having an affair. The novel is as much about grieving the illusion of her life as it is about the death of her husband. An engaging and notable debut!
Buy the Book Here
comments
