Review by Booklist Review
The ghosts Chow writes about in her elegiac memoir are both literal and metaphorical. In lyrical and probing vignettes, she explores the spaces left behind when someone dies and how the loss reverberates through generations. Chow recounts seeing flashes of her mother, who died when Chow was in high school, sometimes reflected in her own behavior but also, more frequently and more startlingly, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. Jumping back and forth in time, Chow considers how her parents were also haunted by losing a parent early on, the loss of a baby brother before she was born, family immigration experiences, and her relationships with her siblings and hoarder father. Deeply personal and intimate stories rooted in her family history in China and Hong Kong seamlessly flow into examinations of larger historical trends and sociological issues. Readers familiar with Chow's reporting on NPR will not be surprised at her storytelling skills, which shine even more brightly here. This haunting, deeply moving, and beautifully written chronicle of the immense grief that once tore Chow's family apart and now binds them will resonate with every reader.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Chow writes longingly about her mother, who died from cancer, in this intimate debut about a life shaped by loss. "It is not incorrect to say that for years, the way my family grieved my mother was to avoid acknowledging her altogether," she writes. In an effort to preserve her mother's memory after her mother's death in 2004, Chow traced the story of her mother's life, from her birth in China in 1955 through her troubled marriage with Chow's father in Connecticut to her painful last days. Woven in are several other family specters, including her maternal grandmother's death at age 41 ("it seemed all the Yu women died young"); generational schisms caused by the Chinese Communist Party; and the infant death of Chow's older brother. While deep emotion drives her writing, Chow generally avoids oversentimentality and buoys what could otherwise be an overwhelmingly despondent narrative with bursts of joy and irreverence--such as memories of her mother's fondness for "kissing books" and playing pranks on her children. The result is a moving depiction of grief at its most mundane and spectacular. Agent: Jin Auh, the Wylie Agency. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist Chow confronts the loss of her mother in a memoir that illustrates the way grief can become a fixture in one's life--grief for the lost loved one and for all that remains unspoken and elusive. Chow's mother was born in China and emigrated to the U.S. to attend college, where she met her husband. When Chow was growing up, a failed restaurant venture and an ever-present sense of financial precarity fueled her parents' frequent arguments. After her mother's death from cancer in 2004, her older siblings head to college, and Chow is left to forge a relationship with her reticent father. She becomes a kind of reservoir for her family, absorbing their pain, unresolved antagonisms, and memories both warm and haunting. Her memoir is a vivid portrait of her loving and flawed Chinese American family. The book is a tribute to Chow's spirited mother, but it's also a revealing portrait of three daughters trying to negotiate a complicated relationship with their father. VERDICT Chow's book is an important and welcome addition to a growing catalogue of memoirs by a new generation of Asian American writers, including Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart and Anna Qu's Made in China.--Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Chinese American writer reflects on the profound loss of her mother to cancer and how it informed her adulthood. The poignancy of journalist Chow's debut memoir can be felt instantly when she confesses that she still struggles to comprehend her mother's death in 2004 and finds herself often rushing to glimpse her memorial. The author, a founding member of NPR's Code Switch team, considers herself unique in a traditional Chinese family that refused to openly grieve. As a loving tribute, Chow vibrantly tells the story of her mother's life with great dexterity and in luminous detail. Born in China, Chow's mother immigrated to America to attend college and ended up charming her father at a tag sale, which led to a problematic marriage riddled with bickering, unrest, and money problems. Honoring her family's ghosts, the author also writes movingly about the crushing death of her brother just an hour after his premature birth, the steady decline of her mother's health as cancer ravaged her, and how the early deaths of the women in her family gives her both pause and cause for concern. Chow fondly recalls how her mother looked while dressing in her closet for work each morning and "how our bodies were similar, that I was an extension of you." Her mother hid internal aches she blamed on age but were later revealed as symptoms of her terminal disease. There is levity braided into the memories, as well: Chow's mother telling her, at age 9, that she wanted to be stuffed after her death so she could "sit in your apartment and watch you all the time," fun family road trips, and her mother's penchant for practical jokes. By uniting family memories, elements of Chinese culture, and an intimate perspective, Chow wraps tragedy and history into an affecting memorial. A powerful remembrance of a family unmoored by the loss of its matriarch. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
