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Book Reviewed by:Powerfully evoking the contemporary American family in all its fragility and strength, Gish Jen has given us her most exuberant and accomplished novel about the new "half-half" American family.
From the highly
praised author of Mona in the Promised Land and Who's Irish?–a
generous, funny, explosive novel about the new "half-half" American
family.
Here is Carnegie Wong, second-generation Chinese American warm heart and funny
guy. Here is his WASP wife, the delicious "za-za-vavoomy" Blondie. Here
are their two adopted Asian daughters, and their half-half bio son. And here
is Mama Wong, Carnegie's no-holds-barred mother, who, eternally opposed to
his marriage, has arranged from her grave for a mainland Chinese relation to
come look after the kids. Is this woman, as Carnegie claims, a nanny? Or is
she, as Blondie fears, something else?
What happens as Carnegie and Blondie try to incorporate the ambiguous new
arrival into their already complicated lives is touchingly, brilliantly,
intricately told.
Powerfully evoking the contemporary American family in all its fragility and
strength, Gish Jen has given us her most exuberant and accomplished novel.
Excerpt
The Love Wife
BLONDIE / The day Lan came, you could still say whose family this
was--Carnegie's and mine.
We had three children. Two beautiful Asian girls--or should I say Asian
American--Wendy, age nine, and Lizzy, age fifteen, both adopted; and one bio
boy, Bailey, age thirteen months. Carnegie's ancestry being Chinese, and mine
European, Bailey was half half, as they say--or is there another term by now?
With less mismatch in it--'half half' having always spoken to me more of socks
than of our surprise child, come to warm the lap of our middle years.
Our family was, in any case, an improvisation. The new American family, our
neighbor Mitchell once proclaimed, tottering drunk up our deck stairs. But for
Carnegie and me, it was simply something we made. Something we chose.
His mother, Mama Wong, thought this unnatural.
The trouble with you people is not enough periods, she liked to say.
You
can say I ...
A meddlesome Chinese-American bequeaths a mainland Chinese nanny (and distant relative) on her second generation American son and his blond wife in this 'darkly comic fairy tale about cultural assimilation' (Publishers Weekly). Jen avoids the clichés of a standard evil-nanny plot by imbuing the story with great dollops of compassion, humor and attention to detail. Personally, I found the story went on a little longer than I would have liked and I found myself intensely frustrated with some of the characters; however, as Publishers Weekly writes 'though the shifting first-person narratives sometimes come off as awkwardly stagey, this novel has a robust, lived-in quality that makes you miss it when it's over'. Library Journal tags The Love Wife as 'highly recommended' and The Los Angeles Times says 'Jen's humor and sharp writing are delightful...a tale about family love and commitment in an era of political correctness'. ..continued
Full Review
(147 words)
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Cynthia Ozick
I've been reading and marveling . . . Her characters are so alive that
one can hardly call them 'characters.' Blondie, Mama Wong, Carnegie, Lizzy,
Wendy, and, oh, Lan! I didn't want to part from them here is a novel so
insightful, so satisfying, that it ought never to have ended. The interlude in
China, the ingenuity of the narration, the tenderness, the all-observing
comedy, the darker elements, the perfect-pitch dialogue, the domestic
exactitude, the surprises! Having lived for a time (too brief a time) with
Gish's people as with one's own family, one comes to love them. Jay Parini
It's hard to find a novel that seems, at once, so funny and so touching
that one really is dumbstruck with admiration. The Love Wife, with its
fragmented narrative, its feast of voices, summons a strange new American
reality and declares it pure. I read the book in three sittings, and plan to
start it all over again soon, hating to leave this world, these characters,
this vision. Maxine Hong Kingston
What a truly
satisfying read The Love Wife is. As I got to know the Wongs – a family
like more and more American families – I loved each one of them. Hearing their
multi-lingual voices and participating in their delights and sadnesses, their
fun and troubles, I felt my own understanding and kindness grow. A wonderful
book.Gish Jen's first novel was published in 1991; Typical American followed three young Chinese immigrants who slowly transform into everything they had once criticized as 'typically American'. In her next book, Mona in the Promised Land (1996), which was named one of the LA Times' top ten books of 1996, Jen continued to explore the notions of cultural diversity and ethnic identity. In 1999 she published a collection of eight short stories titled Who's Irish?: And Other Stories which examined American life from a foreigner's perspective. In addition her short stories have been published in many places including The New Yorker and The New York Times. The Love Wife is her fourth book.
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