Stephen Hong Sohn's Blog, page 20
May 19, 2021
A Review of Tash Aw’s We, The Survivors (FSG, 2019)
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
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As part of my lightning reviews, I want to cover Tash Aw’s We, The Survivors (FSG, 2019). I’ve always been a fan of Aw. His prose has consistently captured my attention. The case is no less so with this novel. The marketing description gives us this context: “Ah Hock is an ordinary man of simple means. Born and raised in a Malaysian fishing village, he favors stability above all, a preference at odds with his rapidly modernizing surroundings. So what brings him to kill a man? This question leads a young, privileged journalist to Ah Hock’s door. While the victim has been mourned and the killer has served time for the crime, Ah Hock's motive remains unclear, even to himself. His vivid confession unfurls over extensive interviews with the journalist, herself a local whose life has taken a very different course. The process forces both the speaker and his listener to reckon with systems of power, race, and class in a place where success is promised to all yet delivered only to its lucky heirs. An uncompromising portrait of an outsider navigating a society in transition, Tash Aw’s anti-nostalgic tale, We, the Survivors, holds its tension to the very end. In the wake of loss and destruction, hope is among the survivors.” Aw’s written what might be best descripted as a contemporary social realist work. From the very beginning, we know things are not going to go well. Ah Hock has already been convicted for killing another man, but we don’t really understand what leads him to that rash act. The novel unfolds in an intriguing manner because at first we don’t know that it’s really a long interview between the journalist and Ah Hock. Interspersed with sections that are narrated by Ah Hock as he is interviewed, we get a sense of the journalist’s background. What becomes evident over the course of this particular narrative is that Ah Hock and the people who he has grown up with have only managed to scrape by. They are the titular “survivors,” but just barely so. The problem is that the novel lets us know that there are those who are even lower on the global capitalist totem pole. In this sense, even as we come to understand what might have motivated Ah Hock to kill and the desperate circumstances he finds himself in, we also see how deeply stratified things have become, so much so that the arrival of refugees at the conclusion of this novel provides us a more expansive sense of the perilous milieu that have entrapped so many. You can guess that there is no happy ending. Aw is definitely stretching himself with this work. The use of various narrative perspectives and the robust first person usage definitely reveals an author pushing himself to new heights. Highly recommended.
Buy the Book Here
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
[image error]
As part of my lightning reviews, I want to cover Tash Aw’s We, The Survivors (FSG, 2019). I’ve always been a fan of Aw. His prose has consistently captured my attention. The case is no less so with this novel. The marketing description gives us this context: “Ah Hock is an ordinary man of simple means. Born and raised in a Malaysian fishing village, he favors stability above all, a preference at odds with his rapidly modernizing surroundings. So what brings him to kill a man? This question leads a young, privileged journalist to Ah Hock’s door. While the victim has been mourned and the killer has served time for the crime, Ah Hock's motive remains unclear, even to himself. His vivid confession unfurls over extensive interviews with the journalist, herself a local whose life has taken a very different course. The process forces both the speaker and his listener to reckon with systems of power, race, and class in a place where success is promised to all yet delivered only to its lucky heirs. An uncompromising portrait of an outsider navigating a society in transition, Tash Aw’s anti-nostalgic tale, We, the Survivors, holds its tension to the very end. In the wake of loss and destruction, hope is among the survivors.” Aw’s written what might be best descripted as a contemporary social realist work. From the very beginning, we know things are not going to go well. Ah Hock has already been convicted for killing another man, but we don’t really understand what leads him to that rash act. The novel unfolds in an intriguing manner because at first we don’t know that it’s really a long interview between the journalist and Ah Hock. Interspersed with sections that are narrated by Ah Hock as he is interviewed, we get a sense of the journalist’s background. What becomes evident over the course of this particular narrative is that Ah Hock and the people who he has grown up with have only managed to scrape by. They are the titular “survivors,” but just barely so. The problem is that the novel lets us know that there are those who are even lower on the global capitalist totem pole. In this sense, even as we come to understand what might have motivated Ah Hock to kill and the desperate circumstances he finds himself in, we also see how deeply stratified things have become, so much so that the arrival of refugees at the conclusion of this novel provides us a more expansive sense of the perilous milieu that have entrapped so many. You can guess that there is no happy ending. Aw is definitely stretching himself with this work. The use of various narrative perspectives and the robust first person usage definitely reveals an author pushing himself to new heights. Highly recommended.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Sloane Leong’s A Map of the Sun (First Second, 2020)
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As part of my lightning reviews, I also want to spotlight Sloane Leong’s A Map of the Sun (First Second, 2020)! This graphic novel is one I might consider teaching in the future! It’s that good! Let’s let the official MacMillan marketing description get us off the ground first: “A Map to the Sun is a gripping YA graphic novel about five principle players in a struggling girls' basketball team. One summer day, Ren meets Luna at a beachside basketball court and a friendship is born. But when Luna moves to back to Oahu, Ren’s messages to her friend go unanswered. Years go by. Then Luna returns, hoping to rekindle their friendship. Ren is hesitant. She's dealing with a lot, including family troubles, dropping grades, and the newly formed women's basketball team at their high school. With Ren’s new friends and Luna all on the basketball team, the lines between their lives on and off the court begin to blur. During their first season, this diverse and endearing group of teens are challenged in ways that make them reevaluate just who and how they trust. Sloane Leong’s evocative storytelling about the lives of these young women is an ode to the dynamic nature of friendship.” It’s interesting that they describe this particular work as a “young adult” graphic novel. To be sure, the characters are all in high school, but beyond that, Leong’s work is quite gritty. These high school students are facing resource instability and must find a way to excel despite these circumstances. Basketball offers Ren, Luna, and a number of other strong female characters, a venue in which they can explore their limits and sites of possibility. I especially found the friendship between Ren and Luna to be particularly affecting. These two characters absolutely need each other in order to navigate the thorny waters of high school and of growing up. Ren, in particular, has a particularly challenging home life, so Luna’s particularly upbeat and quirky disposition is precisely what Ren seeks. Leong’s work is also striking because it focuses on a variety of characters of various ethnic backgrounds. The diverse cast never feels forced, and Leong finds organic ways to explore various concerns that arise over identity and growing up. If there is a minor quibble I have with this graphic narrative, it is that I sometimes found the hues to contrast too sharply against the images, but otherwise, this work is certainly recommended reading.
Buy the Book Here
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As part of my lightning reviews, I also want to spotlight Sloane Leong’s A Map of the Sun (First Second, 2020)! This graphic novel is one I might consider teaching in the future! It’s that good! Let’s let the official MacMillan marketing description get us off the ground first: “A Map to the Sun is a gripping YA graphic novel about five principle players in a struggling girls' basketball team. One summer day, Ren meets Luna at a beachside basketball court and a friendship is born. But when Luna moves to back to Oahu, Ren’s messages to her friend go unanswered. Years go by. Then Luna returns, hoping to rekindle their friendship. Ren is hesitant. She's dealing with a lot, including family troubles, dropping grades, and the newly formed women's basketball team at their high school. With Ren’s new friends and Luna all on the basketball team, the lines between their lives on and off the court begin to blur. During their first season, this diverse and endearing group of teens are challenged in ways that make them reevaluate just who and how they trust. Sloane Leong’s evocative storytelling about the lives of these young women is an ode to the dynamic nature of friendship.” It’s interesting that they describe this particular work as a “young adult” graphic novel. To be sure, the characters are all in high school, but beyond that, Leong’s work is quite gritty. These high school students are facing resource instability and must find a way to excel despite these circumstances. Basketball offers Ren, Luna, and a number of other strong female characters, a venue in which they can explore their limits and sites of possibility. I especially found the friendship between Ren and Luna to be particularly affecting. These two characters absolutely need each other in order to navigate the thorny waters of high school and of growing up. Ren, in particular, has a particularly challenging home life, so Luna’s particularly upbeat and quirky disposition is precisely what Ren seeks. Leong’s work is also striking because it focuses on a variety of characters of various ethnic backgrounds. The diverse cast never feels forced, and Leong finds organic ways to explore various concerns that arise over identity and growing up. If there is a minor quibble I have with this graphic narrative, it is that I sometimes found the hues to contrast too sharply against the images, but otherwise, this work is certainly recommended reading.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Samira Ahmed’s Internment (Little Brown for YR, 2019)
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As part of the shorter lightning reviews, I wanted to cover Samira Ahmed’s Internment (Little Brown for YR, 2019), which I read sometime over the last year. Let’s start off with the marketing description: “Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.” This novel is one of those that I find super politically compelling even if it is not always narratively dynamic. Clearly, Ahmed is engaging the complicated post 9/11 milieu in which there had been documented cases of politicians stating that it might be a good idea to put Muslims Americans into internment camps. Of course, the rise in surveillance and hate crimes in the post 9/11 period also contributes to the inspirations behind a novel like this one. In this alternative future, Muslim Americans experience something similar to Japanese Americans. What differentiates this text from some of the canonical first generation Japanese American writings on the internment is that is Layla is explicitly confrontational and oppositional. That is, she’s an activist and will go to great lengths to achieve justice even at the expense of her own well-being. In this sense, you certainly root for her at all stages but the delineation between heroes and villains can be so stark that narrative tension and drama sometimes remains a little bit flat. Fortunately, Ahmed provides us a couple of cases where you can’t be sure who her allies are. In this way, the novel produces its greatest friction when you begin to see that revolutions are often reliant upon double agents and that much must go on behind the scenes for justice to prevail.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As part of the shorter lightning reviews, I wanted to cover Samira Ahmed’s Internment (Little Brown for YR, 2019), which I read sometime over the last year. Let’s start off with the marketing description: “Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.” This novel is one of those that I find super politically compelling even if it is not always narratively dynamic. Clearly, Ahmed is engaging the complicated post 9/11 milieu in which there had been documented cases of politicians stating that it might be a good idea to put Muslims Americans into internment camps. Of course, the rise in surveillance and hate crimes in the post 9/11 period also contributes to the inspirations behind a novel like this one. In this alternative future, Muslim Americans experience something similar to Japanese Americans. What differentiates this text from some of the canonical first generation Japanese American writings on the internment is that is Layla is explicitly confrontational and oppositional. That is, she’s an activist and will go to great lengths to achieve justice even at the expense of her own well-being. In this sense, you certainly root for her at all stages but the delineation between heroes and villains can be so stark that narrative tension and drama sometimes remains a little bit flat. Fortunately, Ahmed provides us a couple of cases where you can’t be sure who her allies are. In this way, the novel produces its greatest friction when you begin to see that revolutions are often reliant upon double agents and that much must go on behind the scenes for justice to prevail.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Olivia Chadha’s Rise of the Red Hand (Erewhon, 2021)
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
Well, Erewhon is one of those publishers that are meeting this particular moment, especially with the rise in interest in speculative fictions. In this year alone, Erewhon will publish no less than five works by English language writers of Asian descent (who include Angela Mi Young Hur, who returns with her second novel; Cassandra Khaw; and J.M. Lee). Here I review Olivia Chadha’s Rise of the Red Hand (Erewhon, 2021), which I believe will be a longer series. Let’s hope so because the conclusion to this novel leaves a number of key threads unclosed! The marketing description gives us this background: “The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs. Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children. When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.” This particular description is pretty robust but leaves out one another major character, Taru, who is part of a younger generation of the Red Hand. Taru is crucial to the plot because she is one of the few people that Ashiva very much cares about and when Taru’s life becomes endangered, Ashiva must work with Riz-Ali to find a way to rescue her. Chadha is able to maintain dynamism in this sprawling fictional world by moving the narrative perspective between these three characters. As we toggle back and forth, we begin to learn of the highly stratified world in which these characters live and must survive. Readers must be patient because the described alliance between Ashiva and Riz-Ali doesn’t actually occur until about one hundred and fifty pages in, but from there the plot really never lets up. We want to find out exactly what is going on in this fictional world because so many characters and entities (such as Solace Corporation) are shrouded in secrets. Despite this novel being billed as an adult fiction, I can tell that Chadha is a fan of young adult novels because the formula she lays out is pretty similar to many that I have been reading in this genre. Chadha is able to weave together a romance plot and quest plot together with various science fictional elements to produce this wide-ranging fictional world. There are cyborgs, mecha, deadly plagues, neural networks that link Uplanders together, amongst other novel technologies. To be sure, Chadha’s novel is immensely entertaining, but the core of this work is the social justice aspect that makes this work rise above so many others. We want Ashiva to succeed if only to give the “downlanders” a chance to endure, amongst a larger global society that has seen fit to discard them.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
Well, Erewhon is one of those publishers that are meeting this particular moment, especially with the rise in interest in speculative fictions. In this year alone, Erewhon will publish no less than five works by English language writers of Asian descent (who include Angela Mi Young Hur, who returns with her second novel; Cassandra Khaw; and J.M. Lee). Here I review Olivia Chadha’s Rise of the Red Hand (Erewhon, 2021), which I believe will be a longer series. Let’s hope so because the conclusion to this novel leaves a number of key threads unclosed! The marketing description gives us this background: “The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs. Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children. When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.” This particular description is pretty robust but leaves out one another major character, Taru, who is part of a younger generation of the Red Hand. Taru is crucial to the plot because she is one of the few people that Ashiva very much cares about and when Taru’s life becomes endangered, Ashiva must work with Riz-Ali to find a way to rescue her. Chadha is able to maintain dynamism in this sprawling fictional world by moving the narrative perspective between these three characters. As we toggle back and forth, we begin to learn of the highly stratified world in which these characters live and must survive. Readers must be patient because the described alliance between Ashiva and Riz-Ali doesn’t actually occur until about one hundred and fifty pages in, but from there the plot really never lets up. We want to find out exactly what is going on in this fictional world because so many characters and entities (such as Solace Corporation) are shrouded in secrets. Despite this novel being billed as an adult fiction, I can tell that Chadha is a fan of young adult novels because the formula she lays out is pretty similar to many that I have been reading in this genre. Chadha is able to weave together a romance plot and quest plot together with various science fictional elements to produce this wide-ranging fictional world. There are cyborgs, mecha, deadly plagues, neural networks that link Uplanders together, amongst other novel technologies. To be sure, Chadha’s novel is immensely entertaining, but the core of this work is the social justice aspect that makes this work rise above so many others. We want Ashiva to succeed if only to give the “downlanders” a chance to endure, amongst a larger global society that has seen fit to discard them.
Buy the Book Here
comments
A Review of E. Lily Yu’s On Fragile Waves (Erewhon, 2021)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
What I love about Erewhon is that it understands the broad reach and expanse that is speculative fiction. On the one hand, they have published a novel like Olivia Chadha’s Rise of the Red Hand (2021), which is undoubtedly science fiction. On the other, they have something like E. Lily Yu’s On Fragile Waves (Erewhon, 2021), which I would argue is a far more low intensity speculative fiction. Chadha’s novel has plagues, mind-linked neural networks, mecha robotics technologies, amongst other such elements. Yu’s On Fragile Waves functions more in the realm of fantasy and magical realism. The official marketing description provides us this background: “The haunting story of a family of dreamers and tale-tellers looking for home in an unwelcoming world. Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia. As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found. When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way. This exquisite and unusual magic realist debut, told in intensely lyrical prose by an award winning author, traces one girl’s migration from war to peace, loss to loss, home to home.” I love the phrase “intensely lyrical,” as it perfectly describes Yu’s prose, which seems to cross over into the poetic quite effectively. The other element about this text is that it reminds me a little bit of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West in that the speculative elements are more peripheral to the larger political implications of the narrative concerning refugees. In this specific case, Firuzeh and her family must endure months waiting to see if they will receive asylum in Australia. Though they eventually are able to gain entry, it is on a temporary status. In this sense, Yu is really plumbing the depths of refugee resettlement precarity. Life in Australia is hardly welcoming. Firuzeh must find a way to acclimate to a new culture and school system, while her parents struggle with their income. An incredible sacrifice made by the father at the novel’s conclusion only makes this particular story all the more tragic. The one salve that Yu gives us is a final section filled with the minor mercies of a fractured family still trying to find their way amongst the pieces of their lives. In this sense, if fictional worlds can provide us something, then it is in these tender moments of dignity, even as we know the future path is ever perilous.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
What I love about Erewhon is that it understands the broad reach and expanse that is speculative fiction. On the one hand, they have published a novel like Olivia Chadha’s Rise of the Red Hand (2021), which is undoubtedly science fiction. On the other, they have something like E. Lily Yu’s On Fragile Waves (Erewhon, 2021), which I would argue is a far more low intensity speculative fiction. Chadha’s novel has plagues, mind-linked neural networks, mecha robotics technologies, amongst other such elements. Yu’s On Fragile Waves functions more in the realm of fantasy and magical realism. The official marketing description provides us this background: “The haunting story of a family of dreamers and tale-tellers looking for home in an unwelcoming world. Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia. As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found. When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way. This exquisite and unusual magic realist debut, told in intensely lyrical prose by an award winning author, traces one girl’s migration from war to peace, loss to loss, home to home.” I love the phrase “intensely lyrical,” as it perfectly describes Yu’s prose, which seems to cross over into the poetic quite effectively. The other element about this text is that it reminds me a little bit of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West in that the speculative elements are more peripheral to the larger political implications of the narrative concerning refugees. In this specific case, Firuzeh and her family must endure months waiting to see if they will receive asylum in Australia. Though they eventually are able to gain entry, it is on a temporary status. In this sense, Yu is really plumbing the depths of refugee resettlement precarity. Life in Australia is hardly welcoming. Firuzeh must find a way to acclimate to a new culture and school system, while her parents struggle with their income. An incredible sacrifice made by the father at the novel’s conclusion only makes this particular story all the more tragic. The one salve that Yu gives us is a final section filled with the minor mercies of a fractured family still trying to find their way amongst the pieces of their lives. In this sense, if fictional worlds can provide us something, then it is in these tender moments of dignity, even as we know the future path is ever perilous.
Buy the Book Here
comments
A Review of Ariel Slamet Ries’s Witchy (Oni Press, 2019)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I actually read this graphic narrative quite a while ago but never actually wrote up the review! Such a problem these days for me, but as part of the lightning review series, I did want to highlight it, as it’s one of my offerings out of Oni Press by writers of Asian descent. Let’s let the Oni Press official description do some work for us: “In the witch kingdom Hyalin, the strength of your magic is determined by the length of your hair. Those that are strong enough are conscripted by the Witch Guard, who enforce the law in peacetime and protect the land during war. However, those with hair judged too long are pronounced enemies of the kingdom, and annihilated. This is called a witch burning.” This rather pithy description does a great job of giving us the essential premise. In this particular fictional world, filled with magic and animated beings, the protagonist Nyneve has been born with very long hair, so she’s naturally a target of the Guard. Nyneve manages to escape before she is killed, but she must find her way in a world filled with strangers. She eventually finds some trusted allies, but the danger remains and Nyneve must make a rather important decision about how to forge her future. Ries’s artwork is absolutely breathtaking, and the world building is first rate. The fantasy elements are crucial to the engagement, and you can’t help but wonder if Ries had been inspired by Miyazaki. It also seems as though there is supposed to be at least one more installment related to this fictional world but cursory searches do not yield much in the way of a sequel. There are definitely threads that are unfinished, so let’s hope that Ries has more for us in store quite soon.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I actually read this graphic narrative quite a while ago but never actually wrote up the review! Such a problem these days for me, but as part of the lightning review series, I did want to highlight it, as it’s one of my offerings out of Oni Press by writers of Asian descent. Let’s let the Oni Press official description do some work for us: “In the witch kingdom Hyalin, the strength of your magic is determined by the length of your hair. Those that are strong enough are conscripted by the Witch Guard, who enforce the law in peacetime and protect the land during war. However, those with hair judged too long are pronounced enemies of the kingdom, and annihilated. This is called a witch burning.” This rather pithy description does a great job of giving us the essential premise. In this particular fictional world, filled with magic and animated beings, the protagonist Nyneve has been born with very long hair, so she’s naturally a target of the Guard. Nyneve manages to escape before she is killed, but she must find her way in a world filled with strangers. She eventually finds some trusted allies, but the danger remains and Nyneve must make a rather important decision about how to forge her future. Ries’s artwork is absolutely breathtaking, and the world building is first rate. The fantasy elements are crucial to the engagement, and you can’t help but wonder if Ries had been inspired by Miyazaki. It also seems as though there is supposed to be at least one more installment related to this fictional world but cursory searches do not yield much in the way of a sequel. There are definitely threads that are unfinished, so let’s hope that Ries has more for us in store quite soon.
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Hieu Minh Nguyen’s Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As I’ve been in the teaching world for the past year, I’ve fallen a bit behind on the reviews, but I have been reading. In an attempt to catch up, I’m focusing on what I will call lightning reviews; they will be shorter, and my point will be cast attention on texts that I believe deserve more publicity and to highlight the tremendous work that so many writers of Asian descent are producing. First up in this lightning review is Hieu Minh Nguyen’s Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018). Let’s let the official B&N description give us a pithy description: Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen’s poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.” I read this particular collection as part of a mini reading group. It was a revelatory discussion. Nguyen, as always, basks in the beauty of the confessional lyric. The lyric speaker always offers up so much to digest. Particularly incisive is the way in which the collection makes clear how interracial desire gets constructed. Nguyen makes clear that the desire for whiteness emerges from the aftermath of war. That is, the ostensible carryover of American heroism codified in the white soldier becomes something that Nguyen’s lyric speaker must confront, especially as those in his family can understand that form of orientation over and above a queerness that remains rooted in Vietnamese ethnic tradition. Despite mediated forms of legibility, Nguyen is not content to leave us with a singular form of desire or yearning. Indeed, this collection moves us to confront the need to bring together the disparate parts of the diasporic experience: the pain of migration, the traumas of war, the intricacies in same sex desire. An arresting and poignant collection, one that will make an excellent addition to any course on contemporary poetry, on Asian American literature, and/or queer studies.
Buy the Book Here
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
As I’ve been in the teaching world for the past year, I’ve fallen a bit behind on the reviews, but I have been reading. In an attempt to catch up, I’m focusing on what I will call lightning reviews; they will be shorter, and my point will be cast attention on texts that I believe deserve more publicity and to highlight the tremendous work that so many writers of Asian descent are producing. First up in this lightning review is Hieu Minh Nguyen’s Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018). Let’s let the official B&N description give us a pithy description: Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen’s poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.” I read this particular collection as part of a mini reading group. It was a revelatory discussion. Nguyen, as always, basks in the beauty of the confessional lyric. The lyric speaker always offers up so much to digest. Particularly incisive is the way in which the collection makes clear how interracial desire gets constructed. Nguyen makes clear that the desire for whiteness emerges from the aftermath of war. That is, the ostensible carryover of American heroism codified in the white soldier becomes something that Nguyen’s lyric speaker must confront, especially as those in his family can understand that form of orientation over and above a queerness that remains rooted in Vietnamese ethnic tradition. Despite mediated forms of legibility, Nguyen is not content to leave us with a singular form of desire or yearning. Indeed, this collection moves us to confront the need to bring together the disparate parts of the diasporic experience: the pain of migration, the traumas of war, the intricacies in same sex desire. An arresting and poignant collection, one that will make an excellent addition to any course on contemporary poetry, on Asian American literature, and/or queer studies.
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A Review of Sabaa Tahir’s A Sky Beyond the Storm (Penguin Young Readers Division, 2020)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I’d been saving this particular YA— Sabaa Tahir’s A Sky Beyond the Storm (Penguin Young Readers Division, 2020)—for a time I really needed it. I got some major things off my desk, so I sat down to the conclusion of a series that I’ve absolutely adored. Let’s let the B&N marketing description give us some context: “The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning. By his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family. Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory—or to an unimaginable doom. And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life—and love—he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save—or destroy—all that he knows.” So, what I have appreciated about Tahir’s work as it has moved forward is that it has naturally seemed less and less young adult. The characters have grown; the stakes have only gotten higher. Whereas the first really explored Laia’s adventure alongside her growing attachment to Elias, who would soon become the Soul Catcher, the series has moved toward exploring the larger systemic injustices that have emerged throughout the empire. There are many different factions and groups that Tahir plays with but the primary ones seem to be the complicated dynamics among the jinn, the Martials, and the Scholars. The other aspect that I’ve really enjoyed is that Tahir has gradually added more narrative perspectives as the series has moved forward. The Blood Shrike has become one of my favorite characters, and this final installment gives us a better psychic look into the headspace of the Nightbringer. We get a sense of his motivations and why he would want to destroy so many lives. While readers can guess about what couples that Tahir determines as “endgame,” the takeaway about this particular series is that not everyone gets to have the proverbial happy ending. Nevertheless, there’s so much more to this series than the romance plot, and readers will only be depressed because the rich world-building that Tahir so painstakingly cultivated over four books has had to come to an end. We’ll be on the lookout for what’s next for the talented Tahir. Am I the only one wondering when the series will be turned into movies?
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I’d been saving this particular YA— Sabaa Tahir’s A Sky Beyond the Storm (Penguin Young Readers Division, 2020)—for a time I really needed it. I got some major things off my desk, so I sat down to the conclusion of a series that I’ve absolutely adored. Let’s let the B&N marketing description give us some context: “The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning. By his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family. Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory—or to an unimaginable doom. And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life—and love—he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save—or destroy—all that he knows.” So, what I have appreciated about Tahir’s work as it has moved forward is that it has naturally seemed less and less young adult. The characters have grown; the stakes have only gotten higher. Whereas the first really explored Laia’s adventure alongside her growing attachment to Elias, who would soon become the Soul Catcher, the series has moved toward exploring the larger systemic injustices that have emerged throughout the empire. There are many different factions and groups that Tahir plays with but the primary ones seem to be the complicated dynamics among the jinn, the Martials, and the Scholars. The other aspect that I’ve really enjoyed is that Tahir has gradually added more narrative perspectives as the series has moved forward. The Blood Shrike has become one of my favorite characters, and this final installment gives us a better psychic look into the headspace of the Nightbringer. We get a sense of his motivations and why he would want to destroy so many lives. While readers can guess about what couples that Tahir determines as “endgame,” the takeaway about this particular series is that not everyone gets to have the proverbial happy ending. Nevertheless, there’s so much more to this series than the romance plot, and readers will only be depressed because the rich world-building that Tahir so painstakingly cultivated over four books has had to come to an end. We’ll be on the lookout for what’s next for the talented Tahir. Am I the only one wondering when the series will be turned into movies?
Buy the Book Here
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May 5, 2021
A Review of Mai K. Nguyen’s Pilu of the Woods (Oni Press, 2019)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I’ve been behind on my to-read pile due to the craziness that has come with the COVID pandemic. The things I’ve been gravitating to have often been a little bit lighter. In this case, I turned to a graphic narrative by debut author/ illustrator Mai Nguyen and read Pilu of the Woods (Oni Press, 2019). What tremendous fun this reading was! Let’s let the marketing description give us some background: “Willow loves the woods near her house. They’re calm and quiet, so different from her own turbulent emotions, which she keeps locked away. When her emotions get the better of her one day, she decides to run away into the woods. There, she meets Pilu, a lost tree spirit who can’t find her way back home—which turns out to be the magnolia grove Willow’s mom used to take her to. Willow offers to help Pilu, and the two quickly become friends. But the journey is long, and Pilu isn’t sure she’s ready to return home yet—which infuriates Willow, who’s determined to make up for her own mistakes by getting Pilu back safely. As a storm rages and Willow’s emotions bubble to the surface, they suddenly take on a physical form, putting both girls in danger… and forcing Willow to confront her inner feelings once and for all.” So it’s hard to detail the stakes of this graphic narrative unless I spoil some things, so I’m offering a spoiler warning now. What Nguyen’s text does quite well is show us the connection between Willow and Pilu, which manifests precisely because both characters are feeling a sense of distance from their families. Willow is also bullied at school, which only exacerbates the complicated family dynamics in which she finds herself. An argument with her sister pushes Willow to take off into the forest, where she comes upon Pilu. As the description states, the rest of the narrative primarily deals with getting Pilu back home. What I appreciated most is the mixture of speculation and realism that this graphic narrative brings. Pilu is a kind of avatar of willow trees, and it allows Willow the opportunity to go back to a place that links her to her mother. The other element that was particularly poignant is the way in which this graphic narrative deals with loss and mourning. As the graphic narrative moves toward its conclusion, we see how much Willow has been keeping back. It is her friendship with Pilu that enables her to begin to confront the ever thorny process of mourning. This work is certainly one I’d recommend to any fans of graphic narrative!
Buy the Book Here
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I’ve been behind on my to-read pile due to the craziness that has come with the COVID pandemic. The things I’ve been gravitating to have often been a little bit lighter. In this case, I turned to a graphic narrative by debut author/ illustrator Mai Nguyen and read Pilu of the Woods (Oni Press, 2019). What tremendous fun this reading was! Let’s let the marketing description give us some background: “Willow loves the woods near her house. They’re calm and quiet, so different from her own turbulent emotions, which she keeps locked away. When her emotions get the better of her one day, she decides to run away into the woods. There, she meets Pilu, a lost tree spirit who can’t find her way back home—which turns out to be the magnolia grove Willow’s mom used to take her to. Willow offers to help Pilu, and the two quickly become friends. But the journey is long, and Pilu isn’t sure she’s ready to return home yet—which infuriates Willow, who’s determined to make up for her own mistakes by getting Pilu back safely. As a storm rages and Willow’s emotions bubble to the surface, they suddenly take on a physical form, putting both girls in danger… and forcing Willow to confront her inner feelings once and for all.” So it’s hard to detail the stakes of this graphic narrative unless I spoil some things, so I’m offering a spoiler warning now. What Nguyen’s text does quite well is show us the connection between Willow and Pilu, which manifests precisely because both characters are feeling a sense of distance from their families. Willow is also bullied at school, which only exacerbates the complicated family dynamics in which she finds herself. An argument with her sister pushes Willow to take off into the forest, where she comes upon Pilu. As the description states, the rest of the narrative primarily deals with getting Pilu back home. What I appreciated most is the mixture of speculation and realism that this graphic narrative brings. Pilu is a kind of avatar of willow trees, and it allows Willow the opportunity to go back to a place that links her to her mother. The other element that was particularly poignant is the way in which this graphic narrative deals with loss and mourning. As the graphic narrative moves toward its conclusion, we see how much Willow has been keeping back. It is her friendship with Pilu that enables her to begin to confront the ever thorny process of mourning. This work is certainly one I’d recommend to any fans of graphic narrative!
Buy the Book Here
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A Review of Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown (Knopf Doubleday, 2020)
Posted by:
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
Anything written by Charles Yu is always going to be a treat, so I was super excited to be able to get to read Interior Chinatown (Knopf Doubleday, 2020) as part of a larger reading group. The experience proved to be quite stimulating because I came away from the discussion having a much greater appreciation of the text, which I already found compelling. Let’s let the marketing description give us some key information: “Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.” I don’t know if I would agree that the novel is Yu’s “most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet,” because this kind of statement puts his last novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, into a subordinate position, which it definitely does not deserve. In any case, on the formal level, I did find the novel to be quite rich. Yu toggles between playscript and realism to showcase the struggles that Willis Wu endures as an actor and as an Asian American man. The transitions between representation as showcased by various television shows and associated dramatic scripts in contrast to what is “real” is the blurry boundary that Yu wants to mine in this particular novel. What is “interior Chinatown,” a space of authenticity that moves beyond the tired stereotypes that Asian Americans attempt to escape. For Yu, the most “interior” space, if we might call it that, is none other than the poverty that is associated with the immigrant experience. It is the Chinatown that exists beyond the noir films that populate the Hollywood imaginary and beyond the foods that we commonly associate with such ethnic spaces. Yu’s novel thus operates via tactical juxtapositions: the cramped spaces that exist alongside the stereotypes, the hunger that consumes alongside the marginalization of the Asian American actor. For me, the novel achieves its richest dimensions in a conversation with engaged readers, so I hope you get the opportunity to read this wonderful book and then have someone to discuss it with. This work is another important addition to the corpus of Asian American literatures.
Buy the Book Here
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
Anything written by Charles Yu is always going to be a treat, so I was super excited to be able to get to read Interior Chinatown (Knopf Doubleday, 2020) as part of a larger reading group. The experience proved to be quite stimulating because I came away from the discussion having a much greater appreciation of the text, which I already found compelling. Let’s let the marketing description give us some key information: “Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.” I don’t know if I would agree that the novel is Yu’s “most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet,” because this kind of statement puts his last novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, into a subordinate position, which it definitely does not deserve. In any case, on the formal level, I did find the novel to be quite rich. Yu toggles between playscript and realism to showcase the struggles that Willis Wu endures as an actor and as an Asian American man. The transitions between representation as showcased by various television shows and associated dramatic scripts in contrast to what is “real” is the blurry boundary that Yu wants to mine in this particular novel. What is “interior Chinatown,” a space of authenticity that moves beyond the tired stereotypes that Asian Americans attempt to escape. For Yu, the most “interior” space, if we might call it that, is none other than the poverty that is associated with the immigrant experience. It is the Chinatown that exists beyond the noir films that populate the Hollywood imaginary and beyond the foods that we commonly associate with such ethnic spaces. Yu’s novel thus operates via tactical juxtapositions: the cramped spaces that exist alongside the stereotypes, the hunger that consumes alongside the marginalization of the Asian American actor. For me, the novel achieves its richest dimensions in a conversation with engaged readers, so I hope you get the opportunity to read this wonderful book and then have someone to discuss it with. This work is another important addition to the corpus of Asian American literatures.
Buy the Book Here
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