Stephen Hong Sohn's Blog, page 2

A Review of Erin Entrada Kelly’s First State of Being (Greenwillow, 2024)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

I haven’t read something in the middle grade arena for awhile, and I was compelled to because Erin Entrada Kelly, a Fil Am writer, just won the Newberry Medal for First State of Being (Greenwillow 2024). I remember I would always consider reading the Newberry Medal winner as a kid, and there are definitely some standouts for me. Growing up, one of my absolute favorites was Dear Mr. Henshaw, and one of my all time favorite novels of any genre, any period, any age group is Madeleine L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s the latter book that First State of Being sort of reminds me of. With that teaser in mind, let’s turn to the marketing description: “It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his sixteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby. It turns out that Ridge is carefree, confident, and bold, things Michael wishes he could be. Unlike Michael, however, Ridge isn’t where he belongs. When Ridge reveals that he’s the world’s first time traveler, Michael and Gibby are stunned but curious. As Ridge immerses himself in 1999—fascinated by microwaves, basketballs, and malls—Michael discovers that his new friend has a book that outlines the events of the next twenty years, and his curiosity morphs into something else: focused determination. Michael wants—no, needs—to get his hands on that book. How else can he prepare for the future? But how far is he willing to go to get it? A story of time travel, friendship, found family, and first loves, this thematically rich novel is distinguished by its voice, character development, setting, and exploration of the issues that resonate with middle grade readers.”

 

So, I’m actually going to start with my critiques: I actually wanted way more science fiction! When I think back to L’engle’s novel, she didn’t shy away from the sci-fi aspects of that text, especially when explaining the folds in time and space that allow for travel to distant points to occur (quicker than the speed of light). The second critique I have stems from the ending, so I’ll provide you with my spoiler warning now (as per usual). I’ll assume you looked away or that you’re still reading because you have already read the novel and just want to hear what I have to say about it. The conclusion sees Ridge going back home to his time period, some point way far into the future, but we don’t find out about the outcome of his experiment nor do we know too much about the cultures of the future as envisioned by Kelly. I do think a detailed epilogue or perhaps an appendix of what life in the future is like might have been really interesting. But beyond these quibbles, I can understand why this book received the medal. The ones that win this award have a lot of heart, and this novel has it in spades. It first develops it in the way that Gibby takes care of Michael, even though they live in an area that is not necessarily the most affluent. The relationship that Michael has with his very hard-working mother is also a high point, where we can absolutely see that despite some of the challenges of growing up where he is, he can look up to a mother who understands and prioritizes what is best for him. And then there’s some of the people who live in the same apartment complex: Michael develops some key friendships there that help him transition into being a more sophisticated human being, something that will also enable him to support Ridge, as they all figure out a way for Ridge to return to his time period. It's a heartwarming novel, one that does not shy away from all the challenges that come with growing up as an adolescent in the 1990s. And, I can definitely relate.

 

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A Review of Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection: Fiction (William Morrow, 2024)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

Well, Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection: Fiction (William Morrow, 2024) is my doozy read for this year. This one was probably too much for me, but I’m glad I read it. It’s gotten a lot of buzz as a collection that squarely deals with incel culture. Let’s go on to that ever-important marketing description: ““Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet. In “The Feminist,” a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics” spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,” a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.”

 

 I love linked story collections, so I hope that I found all the basic links, but the kind that Tulathimutte has written is my favorite: characters in one story sometimes return in another. What I adore about this approach is that you get a more kaleidoscopic view of a given character. Of course, Tulathimutte increases the cohesion of this fragmented narrative through the rubric of rejection. The challenge for readers of this work emerges in the tone as well as the content. It is highly satirical and potentially comic, but it is advanced through and by the complications of dating and erotic attraction and all the messiness that that can sometimes entail. There were points where I did think that the narrative went a little bit too far, but satire is that thing of taste. What one person considers funny or critical another might find too much or just not humorous. I did really enjoy the last story, which is essentially a meta-epistolary story from an editor to the fictive character Tony, who has had his manuscript rejected. Here, the editor essentially engages in a kind of analysis of the pitfalls of Tulathimutte’s previous stories, ultimately castigating fictive Tony for being too obfuscating. The real author Tulathimutte might be heading off at the pass the ways in which satire can leave readers without a firm positionality of social critique to stand on, but I still found enjoyed it, partly because it hews closest to popular literary criticism. I’m sure this collection will get critical attention from scholars, as the meta dynamics are reminiscent of the best in this genre (see, for instance, Nam Le’s first story from The Boat). Like I said: the doozy read of the year.

 

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A Review of Sandeep Jauhar’s My Father’s Brain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

For a very long time, I avoided reading in the doctor-memoir genre. I think part of my hesitation was that it brings up complicated personal feelings given that I gave up a spot in medical school to go after this thing called a doctorate in literary studies. Of late, I’ve been more willing to dive into this genre, certainly in part due to the rise of interest in disability and illness studies, and here I am reviewing Sandeep Jauhar’s My Father’s Brain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). We’ll now move to the marketing description: “A deeply affecting memoir of a father’s descent into dementia, and a revelatory inquiry into why the human brain degenerates with age and what we can do about it. Almost six million Americans—about one in every ten people over the age of sixty-five—have Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia, and this number is projected to more than double by 2050. What is it like to live with and amid this increasingly prevalent condition, an affliction that some fear more than death? In My Father’s Brain, the distinguished physician and author Sandeep Jauhar sets his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding this disease and how it might best be coped with, if not cured. In an intimate memoir rich with humor and heartbreak, Jauhar relates how his immigrant father and extended family felt, quarreled, and found their way through the dissolution of a cherished life. Along the way, he lucidly exposes what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, and explores everything from ancient conceptions of the mind to the most cutting-edge neurological—and bioethical—research. Throughout, My Father’s Brain confronts the moral and psychological concerns that arise when family members must become caregivers, when children’s and parents’ roles reverse, and when we must accept unforeseen turns in our closest relationships—and in our understanding of what it is to have a self. The result is a work of essential insight into dementia, and into how scientists, caregivers, and all of us in an aging society are reckoning with the fallout.”

 

 So, at this point, I’ve read a couple of different texts—both nonfictional and not—that deal either with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s. The former term is a broader one that encapsulates various types of degenerative brain diseases, including things like Pick’s Disease (etc.). The caregiving aspect is what will stay with me the most, as Jauhar must constantly work with his siblings to find out what will preserve his father’s quality of life, on the one hand, and while on the other hand the family members try to carve out their own futures. This balance is very difficult, given demanding jobs and the children that each of the siblings must care for. Fortunately, Jauhar’s father has a very enterprising live-in housekeeper named Harwinder, who often engages in the brunt of the day-to-day care work, but even this assistance is often not enough. This description also fails to mention the important fact that Jauhar’s mother passes away from Parkinson’s related issues around the time that Jauhar’s father begins the most precipitous descent into dementia. So, even as the family must grieve, they are simultaneously dealing with the increasing debility of their father, both in mind and body. What is perhaps most disappointing about what Jauhar reveals is how little assistance is given to those who need it most. Dementia-related research and aid pales in comparison to other illnesses, such as cancer. Further still, there are few effective treatments that slow or halt the disease progression, especially once the disease has advanced. In this sense, to write about someone suffering about dementia is to place oneself in the role of the witness, and this aspect is perhaps the clearest form of care and love that Jauhar demonstrates in this work. What I appreciated most was the balance of accessible scientific information that appears alongside the more common conventions of the memoir. In this way, readers are able to get considerable context about the history of dementia and how it has been treated along with the more intimate look that Jauhar generously provides us. One of the most impressive elements of this memoir is Jauhar’s willingness to dive into the occasional fractures that emerge when family members differ in the approach to an ailing loved one’s care. At the end of the day, Jauhar and his siblings understand that they must put the needs of their father front and center, even as they sometimes debate over the course of action. In this spirit of tenderness amid so much heartbreak and volatility, Jauhar’s memoir has much to teach us about the challenges that come with the lengthy journey that is dementia.

Buy the Book Here

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A Review of Sandeep Jauhar’s My Father’s Brain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

For a very long time, I avoided reading in the doctor-memoir genre. I think part of my hesitation was that it brings up complicated personal feelings given that I gave up a spot in medical school to go after this thing called a doctorate in literary studies. Of late, I’ve been more willing to dive into this genre, certainly in part due to the rise of interest in disability and illness studies, and here I am reviewing Sandeep Jauhar’s My Father’s Brain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). We’ll now move to the marketing description: “A deeply affecting memoir of a father’s descent into dementia, and a revelatory inquiry into why the human brain degenerates with age and what we can do about it. Almost six million Americans—about one in every ten people over the age of sixty-five—have Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia, and this number is projected to more than double by 2050. What is it like to live with and amid this increasingly prevalent condition, an affliction that some fear more than death? In My Father’s Brain, the distinguished physician and author Sandeep Jauhar sets his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding this disease and how it might best be coped with, if not cured. In an intimate memoir rich with humor and heartbreak, Jauhar relates how his immigrant father and extended family felt, quarreled, and found their way through the dissolution of a cherished life. Along the way, he lucidly exposes what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, and explores everything from ancient conceptions of the mind to the most cutting-edge neurological—and bioethical—research. Throughout, My Father’s Brain confronts the moral and psychological concerns that arise when family members must become caregivers, when children’s and parents’ roles reverse, and when we must accept unforeseen turns in our closest relationships—and in our understanding of what it is to have a self. The result is a work of essential insight into dementia, and into how scientists, caregivers, and all of us in an aging society are reckoning with the fallout.”

 

 So, at this point, I’ve read a couple of different texts—both nonfictional and not—that deal either with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s. The former term is a broader one that encapsulates various types of degenerative brain diseases, including things like Pick’s Disease (etc.). The caregiving aspect is what will stay with me the most, as Jauhar must constantly work with his siblings to find out what will preserve his father’s quality of life, on the one hand, and while on the other hand the family members try to carve out their own futures. This balance is very difficult, given demanding jobs and the children that each of the siblings must care for. Fortunately, Jauhar’s father has a very enterprising live-in housekeeper named Harwinder, who often engages in the brunt of the day-to-day care work, but even this assistance is often not enough. This description also fails to mention the important fact that Jauhar’s mother passes away from Parkinson’s related issues around the time that Jauhar’s father begins the most precipitous descent into dementia. So, even as the family must grieve, they are simultaneously dealing with the increasing debility of their father, both in mind and body. What is perhaps most disappointing about what Jauhar reveals is how little assistance is given to those who need it most. Dementia-related research and aid pales in comparison to other illnesses, such as cancer. Further still, there are few effective treatments that slow or halt the disease progression, especially once the disease has advanced. In this sense, to write about someone suffering about dementia is to place oneself in the role of the witness, and this aspect is perhaps the clearest form of care and love that Jauhar demonstrates in this work. What I appreciated most was the balance of accessible scientific information that appears alongside the more common conventions of the memoir. In this way, readers are able to get considerable context about the history of dementia and how it has been treated along with the more intimate look that Jauhar generously provides us. One of the most impressive elements of this memoir is Jauhar’s willingness to dive into the occasional fractures that emerge when family members differ in the approach to an ailing loved one’s care. At the end of the day, Jauhar and his siblings understand that they must put the needs of their father front and center, even as they sometimes debate over the course of action. In this spirit of tenderness amid so much heartbreak and volatility, Jauhar’s memoir has much to teach us about the challenges that come with the lengthy journey that is dementia.

Buy the Book Here

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A Review of Anne Anline Cheng’s Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority (Pantheon)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

I’ve been chuffed to see more memoirs and creative nonfictional works published by individuals who I know more prominently through their scholarship. Such is also the case with Anne Anline Cheng’s Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority. For anyone in literary and cultural studies, you already know Cheng as a luminary for her three monographs that focus respectively on racial melancholia, Josephine Baker, and the racial objectification of Asian/ American women. Cheng now veers into the creative nonfictional terrain with Ordinary Disasters (Pantheon, 2024), which I review here: “Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history, Anne Anlin Cheng’s original essays focus on art, politics, and popular culture. Through personal stories woven with a keen eye and an open heart, Cheng summons up the grief, love, anger, and humor in negotiating the realities of being a scholar, an immigrant Asian American woman, a cancer patient, a wife of a white man, and a mother of biracial children . . . all in the midst of the (extra)ordinary stresses of recent years. Ordinary Disasters explores with lyricism and surgical precision the often difficult-to-articulate consequences of race, gender, migration, and empire. It is the story of Chinese mothers and daughters, of race and nationality, of ambition and gender, of memory and forgetting, and the intricate ways in which we struggle for interracial and intergenerational intimacies in a world where there can be no seamless identity.”

 

 I have really enjoyed the essay form lately. It’s a strange one that I didn’t see that much of until Chee’s How To Write an Autobiographical Novel and then Castillo’s How to Read Now. Cheng’s work follows in this strong tradition, with various pieces that focus on the topics listed in the description. I do think that the most compelling are the ones related to Cheng’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent journey. The extraordinary perspective that Cheng shares in these narrative sequences not only give us pause to consider how devastating the disease is just on a physiological level and on an individual, but also how it also affects a larger social ecosystem of the family. A standout piece on Cheng and her son clarifies how she comes to realize just how much her child has imbibed the challenges of knowing that his mother may not live for a long time, and that she must acknowledge that this atmosphere is one that will have a serious impact on his maturation process. Another key thread is Cheng’s time growing up in the South. I have done some research here, so I knew about the relatively sustained population of American born Chinese in Georgia, for instance, but to read about it from a creative nonfictional perspective brings to mind the complications of a transnational migration that occurs in a more contemporary period. Indeed, Cheng’s family comes to the area after a number of Chinese Americans settle there far prior to the Immigration Act of 1924. Though of the same ethnic background, Cheng realizes that she is not quite like these other Chinese American families, which also comes to be accentuated by the general fact that there are not many Asian Americans in the area at all. One key thing is that Cheng already knows she loves literature from her youth. Finally, there are a couple of pieces that are more elegiac in nature, with a standout in which Cheng discusses her relationship with her father. There is a brief moment at the end of that essay in which Cheng realizes her time with her father is coming to a close. She doesn’t realize that a certain moment will be the last time she will her father, but he seems to know, and he lets her hold onto his arm longer than he normally would. What cuts deep about this particular interaction is how astutely Cheng understands what has occurred. Because her parents are not physically demonstrative in terms of affection, these extra seconds come to bear incredible meaning, an awareness that there is a deep love between them, and that they must communicate it before it is too late. I will say that Cheng is generally diplomatic about her experiences as an academic, but there are some obvious kernels in this essay collection which underscore how pioneering her work and her presence is at a place like Princeton and that the gauntlets she has run exist in so many areas of her life. A true survivor in all senses and an outstanding contribution to (Asian) American letters.

 

Buy the Book Here

 

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A Review of Anne Anline Cheng’s Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority (Pantheon,

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

I’ve been chuffed to see more memoirs and creative nonfictional works published by individuals who I know more prominently through their scholarship. Such is also the case with Anne Anline Cheng’s Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority. For anyone in literary and cultural studies, you already know Cheng as a luminary for her three monographs that focus respectively on racial melancholia, Josephine Baker, and the racial objectification of Asian/ American women. Cheng now veers into the creative nonfictional terrain with Ordinary Disasters (Pantheon, 2024), which I review here: “Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history, Anne Anlin Cheng’s original essays focus on art, politics, and popular culture. Through personal stories woven with a keen eye and an open heart, Cheng summons up the grief, love, anger, and humor in negotiating the realities of being a scholar, an immigrant Asian American woman, a cancer patient, a wife of a white man, and a mother of biracial children . . . all in the midst of the (extra)ordinary stresses of recent years. Ordinary Disasters explores with lyricism and surgical precision the often difficult-to-articulate consequences of race, gender, migration, and empire. It is the story of Chinese mothers and daughters, of race and nationality, of ambition and gender, of memory and forgetting, and the intricate ways in which we struggle for interracial and intergenerational intimacies in a world where there can be no seamless identity.”

 

 I have really enjoyed the essay form lately. It’s a strange one that I didn’t see that much of until Chee’s How To Write an Autobiographical Novel and then Castillo’s How to Read Now. Cheng’s work follows in this strong tradition, with various pieces that focus on the topics listed in the description. I do think that the most compelling are the ones related to Cheng’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent journey. The extraordinary perspective that Cheng shares in these narrative sequences not only give us pause to consider how devastating the disease is just on a physiological level and on an individual, but also how it also affects a larger social ecosystem of the family. A standout piece on Cheng and her son clarifies how she comes to realize just how much her child has imbibed the challenges of knowing that his mother may not live for a long time, and that she must acknowledge that this atmosphere is one that will have a serious impact on his maturation process. Another key thread is Cheng’s time growing up in the South. I have done some research here, so I knew about the relatively sustained population of American born Chinese in Georgia, for instance, but to read about it from a creative nonfictional perspective brings to mind the complications of a transnational migration that occurs in a more contemporary period. Indeed, Cheng’s family comes to the area after a number of Chinese Americans settle there far prior to the Immigration Act of 1924. Though of the same ethnic background, Cheng realizes that she is not quite like these other Chinese American families, which also comes to be accentuated by the general fact that there are not many Asian Americans in the area at all. One key thing is that Cheng already knows she loves literature from her youth. Finally, there are a couple of pieces that are more elegiac in nature, with a standout in which Cheng discusses her relationship with her father. There is a brief moment at the end of that essay in which Cheng realizes her time with her father is coming to a close. She doesn’t realize that a certain moment will be the last time she will her father, but he seems to know, and he lets her hold onto his arm longer than he normally would. What cuts deep about this particular interaction is how astutely Cheng understands what has occurred. Because her parents are not physically demonstrative in terms of affection, these extra seconds come to bear incredible meaning, an awareness that there is a deep love between them, and that they must communicate it before it is too late. I will say that Cheng is generally diplomatic about her experiences as an academic, but there are some obvious kernels in this essay collection which underscore how pioneering her work and her presence is at a place like Princeton and that the gauntlets she has run exist in so many areas of her life. A true survivor in all senses and an outstanding contribution to (Asian) American letters.

 

Buy the Book Here

 

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A Review of Samantha Sotto Yambao’s Water Moon (Del Rey, 2025)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

Samantha Sotto Yambao’s Water Moon (Del Rey, 2025) may be one of the first books of fiction that I’m reviewing that was published in 2025. Yes, I’m behind, but so is everyone else who studies and reads Asian American literature because it would literally be a full-time job now to just be on top of the what is coming out LOL. So, for those in the know, Yambao previously published under Samantha Sotto. Long ago, we reviewed her debut, Before Ever After. I’m not sure why there is a change in the publication name, but that’s more of a detail to us. Between Before Ever After and Water Moon, there was an e-only publication called Love and Gravity. This publication was one of the first moments that I had where I was firmly dismayed by the changing landscape of reading because there were things that were only being published in digital form. I still to this day do not understand why there can’t be a print on demand option for anything that is primarily marketed as digital! We analogue kings and queens still demand our material culture. Water Moon came at a time of  really bad insomnia, and I was really happy to have this novel, which really is like some of what the blurbs said, connecting this novel to Spirited Away. Okay, let’s get to that marketing description: “On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it. Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds. But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.”

 

This book has a LOT of weird details and weird worldbuilding issues that I didn’t fully understand. For instance, you can travel on rumors or travel through puddles. You can fold paper and thus fold time. You can buy almost anything in this dark shadow world for a price. Choices take the form of birds, which are also souls, and then there are malevolent creatures who want to take these souls because they do not have souls of their own. There are unsouled children who then develop into these malevolent creatures, who seem to be made only of inorganic parts. The description is not entirely accurate I guess, and so I will provide my spoiler warning: have you looked away? If you have not, you will find out that Hana absolutely knows that her father staged the ransacking so that the malevolent overlords of this shadow world do not think Hana is involved and may actually give up on looking for her father. Hana realizes that her father thinks that his wife, Hana’s mother, may still be alive, even though everyone thought she was executed when she failed to deliver a “choice” to those malevolent overlords. Thus, what ensues is really a detective quest. Hana is eventually accompanied by a physicist who happens upon the shop on the same day of the ransacking. The physicist is clearly into Hana romantically, so he’ll pretty much do anything to spend time with her, despite the fact that he’s in a shadow world where physics seem to have no meaning. I’m always the most skeptical about this element of the plot in fantasies only because it seems to stretch credulity—at least to me—that a person will simply go into a dangerous under world without really knowing the stakes of what might befall him. And they are in danger ALL.THE.TIME. But, the true romantics in these readers will love this dynamic duo because they persist in the face of demons, monsters, and everything in-between that might be trying to push them off the path of their quest. Eventually, Hana discovers that her mother is indeed alive, but there is no happy reunion, only knowledge that the world in which she has been born into is structured through various conceits that eliminate the possibility for much free will and agency. The ending was wrapped up a little bit too neatly, and because the worldbuilding rules are so strange, I actually wanted to find out what happened to Hana when she is forced apart from her dashing romantic paramour. And spoiler warning again: they are eventually be reunited but not after a long time apart. On the level of my insomnia, I will say that the novel did its purpose. It helped relax me in a time of great stress and anxiety, and so we sometimes see the salve that fiction can offer, at least in the form of closure.

 

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A Review of Katie Kitamura’s Audition (Riverhead, 2025)

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

I’ve always been a huge fan of Katie Kitamura. I fell hook line and sinker for Kitamura’s work ever since her unexpected first novel, but it was the unrelenting prose of Gone to the Forest, Kitamura’s second work that truly threw me. From then, I’ve followed her literary publication journey, reading with much interest the intriguing divorce story at the center of A Separation and the strange, disorienting world of The Intimacies. Audition (Riverhead, 2025) retains Kitamura’s enviable prose, though I’m not sure I understood what even happened in this novel. I may need someone’s interpretation. Let’s let the marketing description tantalize us even a little bit further, and I am definitely giving you that spoiler warning NOW: “One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.”

 

The reviews I’ve seen online haven’t really helped me figure out how I feel about this novel. Most have been raving, but I still find myself pretty perplexed. The first half of the novel involves the unnamed narrator circling around Xavier, a young man. It is clear that the generational difference between the unnamed narrator and Xavier is an issue: how do people see the two of them out in public? The unnamed narrator suspects that some might think Xavier an escort and possibly a young lover, and the narrator herself certainly finds Xavier attractive. For his part (and role, and the importance of roles will come up again and again), Xavier believes the unnamed narrator to be his mother based upon an interview that the narrator gave awhile back where she claims to have given up her child. This information was an equivocation that the interviewer never clarified: the narrator-actress had in fact had an abortion but the interviewer chose to cloak the meaning. Their meetup at the restaurant is interrupted when the unnamed narrator thinks she’s seen her husband Tomas there, though he’s supposed to be somewhere else. The fact that Tomas sees her, but then leaves the restaurant leaves her perturbed, and she goes after him. What ensues is a long monologue where we discover their marital strain that has befallen them, with the narrator having had a string of affairs. The second part of the novel shifts dramatically. The play that the narrator had been struggling with in part one has now become a major success, though now the play has a different name. The roles around the narrator have seemingly changed. Xavier is now in fact the narrator-actress’s son, and Tomas is Xavier’s father. Xavier eventually moves back in with Tomas and the narrator, though it is evident that there is some kind of subtext to the strain between parents and child. This section of the novel was the most difficult for me to understand. Xavier’s girlfriend Hana eventually moves in, and one day that narrator-actress comes upon them in some sort of strange interaction. The narrator-actress demands that Hana leave, which of course creates more strain with Xavier. The conclusion reveals that Xavier had been spending his time hammering away at a play with the narrator-actress inspiring the title role. The meta-dramatic conceit of novel may be playing with the various ways in which we perform socially expected identities, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the novel-of-ideas, and I found myself unwilling to let go of narrative coherence. Indeed, I wanted to make sense of how part 1 related to part 2: was one the reality over the other? Was there a way to put them together to make sense of them as a single narrative? The latter question seems impossible (unless section 1 is a version of the play that Xavier has written), but if we go with the sliding doors type model, I would have preferred a stronger way to unite the two sections, perhaps with the first one, ending in a way that revealed again some sort of meta-dramatic conceit. Whatever the case, the novel will get you to converse with someone, especially because you will want to find out the reaction of someone else who has read the novel. And, of course, whatever you feel about the plot, Kitamura’s prose will always be sparking. There is a moment in this novel where Kitamura’s narrator is essentially telling readers something that Xavier might want to know (something along the lines of: “Of course I didn’t tell Xavier any of these things), but the narrator only directs it to her audience in a kind of interior monologue. It is an exquisite moment and technique that enhances the intimacy that Kitamura can create through her fiction.

 

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A Review of Alexandra A. Chan’s In the Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic (F

Posted by: uttararangarajan

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

Alexandra A. Chan’s In the Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic (Flashpoint, 2024) continues my trend of reading some creative nonfictional publications. The book actually comes out of a hybrid publishing company that also has a self-publishing arm called Girl Friday Productions (the full link for this book can be found below).  This text is an absolutely gorgeously produced work, much in the same vein as Satsuki Ina’s The Poet and the Silk Girl. There are full color illustrations, high quality glossy pages, and full color photographs. Let’s let the marketing description do some work for us: “A left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter, Chan finds her logical approach to life utterly fails her in the face of this profound grief. Unable to find a way forward, she must either burn to ash or forge herself anew. Slowly, painfully, wondrously, Chan discovers that her father and ancestors have left threads of renewal in the artifacts and stories of their lives. Through a long-lost interview conducted by Roosevelt’s Federal Writers’ Project, a basket of war letters written from the Burmese jungle, a box of photographs, her world travels, and a deepening relationship to her own art, the archaeologist and lifelong rationalist makes her greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment. In an epic story that travels from prerevolution China to the South under Jim Crow, from the Pacific theater of WWII to the black sands of Reynisfjara, Iceland, and beyond, Chan takes us on a universal journey to meaning in the wake of devastating loss, sharing the insights and tools that allowed her to rebuild her life and resurrect her spirit. Part memoir, part lyrical invitation to new ways of seeing and better ways of being in dark times, the book includes beautiful full-color original Chinese brush paintings by the author and fascinating vintage photographs of an unforgettable cast of characters. In the Garden Behind the Moon is a captivating family portrait and an urgent call to awaken to the magic and wonder of daily life.”

 

I’ll start out by saying that this work doesn’t fit into a single genre, though it probably hews closest to the memoir. Chan chooses to structure the work through the Chinese zodiac calendar. While it would seem like the memoir would be linear, it actually is not. The placeholder years really exist as the beginning point of each chapter, which often moves forward and backward in time. Chan has done some painstaking work, not only in ensuring that a larger archival footprint of her family is shared with readers but also in the background research that she conducts to fill out her family’s lengthy genealogy. This creative nonfictional work is anchored primarily by Chan’s attentiveness to grief. Indeed, the emotional core emerges through Chan’s close relationship with her father, which she conveys through the larger historical tapestry that is unveiled by detailing his life. He grows up in Georgia at a time where there are very few Chinese Americans; he serves in World War II; he marries and gets divorced and marries again (having dealt with the problematics of legislation that impeded interracial unions). Adding to the author’s loss is the fact that her mother will also die of a rare cancer a number of years before the death of her father. But Chan’s modus operandi is to find a way through the grief. Thus the subtitle also reminds us of the centrality of both myth and magic as ways that we confront devastating loss. The “magic” of this particular text surfaces especially in the signs that Chan sees that tells us that her relationship with her parents endures whether or not they are physically with her. She’ll visit faraway places and see traces of her parents in the majestic vistas before her, and she’ll know that the memories she carries means that she will never lose her parents. As the memoir moves forward—and I provide you with a spoiler warning here—Chan’s research into her family history yields a shocking discovery. Her father discovers that their ancestral background ties them to African Americans. Chan comes to find out that an ancestor who was purportedly from South America had actually come to pass as half-Chinese and that she and her family members are part Black. The depth to which Chan continues to mind her biological background is perhaps not surprising, given that she is an archaeologist, but Chan also has an astutely analytical mind as a scholar. Indeed, she comes to consider her father’s mixed race background as one of the reasons why he was so compelled to achieve and to move forward so diligently in life, knowing that the shadows of racial difference could overwhelm him. Chan’s memoir soars precisely because of this impressive balance between self-reflection and excavation, which provides readers with an enduring tribute to a uniquely American family.

 

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A Review of Kristiana Kahakauwila's This Is Paradise: Stories (Hogarth, 2013).

Posted by: uttararangarajan

 

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn  

Edited by Uttara Rangarajan

So, awhile back, the brilliant pylduck reviewed Kristiana Kahakauwila's This Is Paradise: Stories (Hogarth, 2013). Sometimes, when another reviewer covers a title, I choose not to review, but I had a chance to return to this title because a former of student of mine wanted to read it. Why not? By, the way, here is pylduck’s review, way back when we were on Livejournal and in the heyday of blogging (*sadface*). Let’s make the important statement that Kahakauwila is not an Asian American writer and identifies partly as Native Hawaiian, but we occasionally cast our lenses to other BIPOC and minority groups just to keep it interesting and to keep our spirit of inclusivity up and running! That being said, let us allow the marketing description get us moving further down the review road: “Elegant, brutal, and profound—this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy. In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island. In the gut-punch of ‘Wanle,’ a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. ‘The Old Paniolo Way’ limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death. Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.”

 

Looking back at pylduck’s review, the opening story is exactly what he mentioned in that it has the signature choral narration that turns poetic. The opening story focuses on the complications between tourist culture and the locals, which ultimately trouble this tropical location as the titular paradise. I actually really love choral narration, so this opening story was a huge hit for me. The other stories mentioned are likewise very strong. “Wanle” is a tough one about honoring one’s ancestral legacy, which ends up fragmenting a budding romantic relationship. “The Old Paniolo Way” is a tough coming out story. “The Road to Hana” and “Portrait of a Good Father” essentially portray two sides of romantic trajectories. The first considers the budding relationship of a couple who has traveled to the islands, while the second looks at a marriage undergoing dissolution. The most formally inventive story is  “Thirty-Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral into a Drinking Game,” which is essentially structured as a list. This story isn’t as successful obviously from an immersive standpoint, but it does evoke the boundaries between poetry and prose, as readers are expected to do way more work in terms of closure. As a whole the collection functions as “slice of life” type narratives that call to mind the workshop styles that come out of MFA programs. This perspective isn’t meant to be a critique, but more of a nod to the ways that writing programs have certainly made their presence known through the emergence of these very talented writers. I don’t think Kahakauwila has another publication yet, but I can only imagine that the prose will be as precise and crystalline as what is apparent in this debut.

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