Sunday Salon: New Asian American Memoir/Short Stories and a Book on Censorship

New Books:

I've discovered another memoir by an Asian American/Chinese American who grew up in a restaurant family in the U.S. (See my review of Curtis Chin's memoir set in Detroit in the 1980s) Jane Wong's book is set in Atlantic City, NJ.

 

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City: A Memoir by Jane Wong

Publication: May 16, 2023, Tin House Books

Genre: memoir, nonfiction, Asian American literature

In her debut memoir, Wong tells a new story about Atlantic City, one that resists a single identity, a single story, as she writes about making do with what you have―and what you don’t.

This is a memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore. (publisher)

See my review of Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City on goodreads. 

Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So

Published August 3, 2021; Ecco

Genre: short stories, Cambodian American literature, gay/lesbian fiction

I read the first three of nine stories so far, of the lives of young Cambodian Americans at home, school, work - their checquered  lives, many on the lower income level, their families surviving as relatively recent immigrants and refugees from the Cambodian Civil War and the Khmer Rouge in the mid 1970s, a war called the Cambodian Genocide.

This war and their family history are still alive among these families, as they try to find their way in a new country, sometimes worried about the past finding its way into their present and future. The stories are set in a community in California.

In the first story, "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts," a single mother of two girls works 24 hours a day in her donut shop, part of her divorce settlement from her Cambodian husband. 

The second story, "Superking Son Scores Again," has a badminton genius doing what he loves best - coaching the high school badminton team, while he does what he hates most, managing his parents' grocery store. 

In a third story, "Maly, Maly, Maly" a young gay Cambodian bonds with his cousin, but when she starts growing into a young woman following her traditions in the community, he is left feeling very alone.   

I'm eager to read the other stories by So, this talented,  award-winning Cambodian writer, who sadly died, possibly of drug complications, in his late 20s. 

About the writer: Anthony Veasna So was a graduate of Stanford University and earned his MFA in fiction at Syracuse University.  

In my mailbox:

Stifled Laughter: One Woman's Story about Fighting Censorship

by Claudia Johnson

March 14, 2023, Fulcrum Publishing

About: Pulitzer Prize Nominated Winner of the 1993 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for Claudia Johnson’s extraordinary efforts to restore banned literary classics from Florida classrooms. 

Stifled Laughter is the story of one woman's efforts to restore literary classics to the classrooms of rural north Florida. 

Thanks to Wiley Saichek/ Saichek Publicity for a review copy

What are you reading this week?

 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted byThe Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: My Mailbox and Library Shelf

 I received two new books recently, a finished copy and an ARC for possible review. They both look very good, being in one of my favorite genres - mystery.

 

Sons and Brothers

By Kim Hays

Publisher: Seventh Street Books, April 2023

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

 

Genre: mystery, detective fiction, set in Bern, Switzerland

About The Book: A suspicious drowning, ugly secrets, and unresolved romantic tension . . .

 Walking his dog along Bern’s icy Aare river, a surgeon in his seventies drowns. When his bruised corpse is found, his watch is missing. A mugging gone wrong? The more Swiss police detective Giuliana Linder and her assistant Renzo Donatelli learn about Johann Karl Gurtner, the more convinced they are that he was no random victim. (publisher)

Kim Hays is a dual Swiss/US citizen. Sons and Brothers is the second mystery in her Polizei Bern series; the first, Pesticide, was shortlisted for the 2020 Debut Dagger award by the Crime Writers’ Association. 

Thanks to Wiley Saichek of Wiley Publicity for a copy of this book. 

A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao

Publication: June 6, 2023 by Soho Crime

Genre: debut historical mystery

About the book:  

An indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation in 1914 Fiji. The local newspapers scream “kidnapping.” 

Akal Singh investigates while confronting the conditions of the indentured workers’ existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji—along with his own thorny notions of personhood and caste. 

(publisher)

Thanks to Soho Crime for a review copy 

 

Library book:

This one I never got a chance to finish. The cover and title are intriguing enough I'm eager to finish it this time and find out more.

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

Published: June 7, 2022 by William Morrow

About: two Asian American women band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise--an incisive blend of fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.

Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two women determined to demand more from life. (publisher)

What are you reading this week?

 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted byThe Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Book Reviews: Multigenerational Families in one Household: Comedy and Pathos

Two very funny books, despite the seriousness of many topics and themes, had me re-reading one in total and the other in parts. Here's what I think about the books.

 

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin  October 23, 2023, Little, Brown and Company

Genre: memoir, family drama, multicultural interest, LGBTQ

This is a memoir about growing up in Detroit in the 1960-1980s. The publisher sums the book up best:

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal.

Here was where,... surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where ... he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.

As an Asian American living in the Midwest, I saw Detroit as both fascinating and dangerous, even as it declined economically and socially when it lost the auto industry and economic power, and became a literal war zone, with riots and fires, a city soon abandoned by many long time residents.

I was delighted to read of this Chinese family that stayed and thrived even in dangerous conditions, because of their well-known restaurant with customers from all classes, races and religions, the common ground being love of Chinese cuisine.

The memoir describes a volatile Detroit during those changing times and the lives of the Chinese family, the Chins, as seen by third son, Curtice, a second generation son. Curtice's book covers his life there until he left after graduating from the University of Michigan to find his own way, as a film maker in NYC.  

The heady topics of his sexuality, his position in the family as the middle child of five, plus racism and discrimination, and the dangers of Detroit are offset by the humor with which Curtice Chin tackles his own personal life there.  The memoir is entertaining as well as informative and very considerate regarding many of the people he came in contact with in school, at work, in daily life. This, in spite of the fact that the Chinese community there could not forget the murder of a family friend, Vincent Chin, considered an act of discrimination that was never fully punished. 

I can see that it took this long for the author to write this book, perhaps because of the sensitive subjects and also because gay rights and legal immigrant rights are now fully established. (At least, we hope so.) 

Kudos to the author for writing with so much insight and honesty, and presenting himself with delightful humor in between the very serious topics.

The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel, January 31, 2023, Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Genre: family drama, contemporary fiction, romance, comedy 

The theme of the book is in its epigraph, a quote supposedly from Thomas Mann. 

 " The sweet spot is where duty and delight converge."

I read the book twice and laughed out loud both times. I consider Amy Poeppel a comic genius for her humor in writing as well as for her intricate plotting, colorful characters, and their coincidental and often hilarious interactions with each other. 

Take the young couple, Lauren the ceramist and Leo the teacher, who were just given a huge brownstone in Greenwich Village, NYC to live in, thanks to a peripatetic father, Phillip.  With their three young children, the couple live happily in the rundown building over a loud basement bar named The Sweet Spot, owned by Dan. 

Phillip, Leo's father, and Evelyn, Lauren's mother visit the house, Phillip to stay and Evelyn to decide on a daily basis whether to go or stay. They all cohabit rather messily but lovingly, while dealing with the problem of other characters - Melissa and Felicity and Russell and their new baby. Plus, there is Bumper, a large messy stray dog that they took in.

Melissa is out for revenge on everyone, targeting Lauren and her boss Felicity. Her antics are mind bogglingly nasty but nevertheless very funny, even when they cause a lot of grief for the others.

A whirlwind of characters, interacting in very comedic ways. I loved laughing while reading.  I recommend this book for anyone looking for a read and a good laugh.

 What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant: Sunday Salon

 

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

First published November 16, 2021; Kindle edition

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Character driven, this thriller also has strong plotlines. I followed the complex individuals with interest as their personal dilemmas and choices were the backbone of the plot.

A father-daughter relationship and single parenthood under strenuous and difficult circumstances led Cooper and young Flicker to live alone in the woods for eight years, hidden from family and law enforcement who would want to find them and drive them apart.

I loved the surprising twists at the end of the book, which was quite emotional as well as suspenseful. 

ARC thanks to NetGalley

Re-reading these two books because I enjoyed them and laughed so much while reading these humorous authors:

The Sweet Spot  by Amy Poeppel

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis ChinPublication: October 27, 2023, Little, Brown and Company I'll be reviewing these two books next Sunday! What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase: Japanese Literature Challenge 16

 

 

The Boy and the Dog

Seishū Hase, Alison Watts (Translator)

 

Published May 1, 2020

I like this novel that follows the stray dog Tamon into the homes and lives of several different people along his five-year journey to find his original owner. 

The dog stays with successive new owners, a few of whom are connected to the yakuza (mob), until they can no longer keep the dog or are not in a position to look after him. This was a good way to move the story forward.

I also liked the ending when Tamon's true and newfound owner connects with the family of the first person who took the dog in.  There is pathos and true sentiment in the relationships with his owners as Tamon was seen as a gift from the gods and a symbol of good luck.

Older children and adults would enjoy the book without, hopefully, being too affected by some of the sadder and more serious events in the stories. 

 

Hase Seishu ((馳 星周) is the pseudonym of the Japanese yakuza-crime novelist Toshihito Bando (坂東 齢人). 
Bando graduated with a BA from Yokohama City University in 1987.

A few of his novels were adapted into Asian films, such as The City of Lost Souls and Sleepless Town, in 2000 and 1998, respectively.

 

This review has been added to the Japanese Literature Challenge 16  hosted by DolceBellezza

The Piano Tuner by Chiang-Sheng Kuo: Sunday Salon

 

The Piano Tuner: A Novel by

Chiang-sheng Kuo

Howard Goldblatt (Translation), Sylvia Li-Chun Lin (Translation)

Published January 3, 2023, Arcade

My rating: 5 stars

All through the book, I struggled to find out the real reason a musical prodigy would fail to realize his potential as a pianist and instead devote his life to tuning pianos used by famous concert pianists.

The mystery is still up in the air, but there are hints throughout the book of boyhood poverty, lack of family support and interest, his uncomely appearance, and above all, the failure of others to carry out their vague promises or hints of help for his personal future.

Disappointment is the theme of this complex character, who seems to put himself at a lower lever in all aspects of his life, romantic and otherwise.

Also an unreliable narrator, he shows us his world through his ideas of concert pianists, musicians, fame, and tuning versus playing the piano. We must make up our own minds about this fascinating yet unnerving character and what his interactions with well known musicians, teachers, and would be patrons really show.

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

 

Book Review: Fractured Soul by Akira Mizubayashi

 

An historical novel set in Japan and France. 

Awarded the Prix des libraires by France’s booksellers, a universal story about music and restoring one’s faith in others amid the aftermath of tremendous loss.

Fractured Soul

by 

Akira Mizubayashi,

 

Alison Anderson (Translator)

Expected publication: April 4th, 2023 by HarperVia

My review:

The novel is an anti-war/anti-imperialism novel set in Japan before and during WWII and in France post war. I was overwhelmed by the sorrow of the 11-year-old Rei as he witnessed/heard his father Yu being arrested at a private concert recital and his father's treasured violin smashed by the boots of a Japanese corporal.

The story is moving and yet sentimental; it links classical music, its performance on stringed instruments, and the loss Rei feels when his father disappeared after the arrest. I thought it fitting that Rei becomes a maker/restorer of quality violins in his own shop in France, where he was raised by a French couple who were friends with his missing father Yu.

Rei spends his life trying to overcome the fractured soul he had become from memories of the violence to his father and his father's beloved violin. Rei heals as he connects with others from his past, piecing together what had happened, in an effort to heal all those who shared in his distress.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this amazing historical novel of music, love, loss and restoration.

This review is part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 16  hosted by DolceBellezza