Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | FICTION YE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | FICTION YE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi) | FICTION YE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
An extraordinary debut collection of short stories by a three-time Pushcart Prize winner following Chinese women in both China and the United States who turn to signs and languages as they cross the alien landscapes of migration and motherhood.
"The most common word in Chinese, perhaps, a ubiquitous syllable people utter and hear all the time, which is supposed to mean good. But what is hao in this world, where good books are burned, good people condemned, meanness considered a good trait, violence good conduct? People say hao when their eyes are marred with suspicion and dread. They say hao when they are tattered inside."
By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in Hao examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience.
In "Gold Mountain," a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In "A Drawer," an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. And in "Stars," a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke. Together, these twelve stories create "an unsettling, hypnotic collection spanning centuries, in which language and children act simultaneously as tethers and casting lines, the reasons and the tools for moving forward after trauma. "You'll come away from this beautiful book changed" (Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House ).
Author Notes
YE CHUN is a bilingual Chinese American writer and literary translator. She has published two books of poetry, Travel Over Water and Lantern Puzzle ; a novel in Chinese,《海上的桃树》(Peach Tree in the Sea); and four volumes of translations. A recipient of an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and three Pushcart Prizes, she teaches at Providence College and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Chun's tender and skillful debut collection explores the power and shortcomings of language for a series of Chinese women in the U.S. and China over the past three centuries. In the gripping opener, "Stars," Luyao is doing graduate studies in the U.S. when she suffers a stroke and loses the ability to speak. Her speech therapist gives her exercises in English, which reminds her of when she learned the language as a child in China, though she craves the ability to speak Chinese again. In the title story, set during the Cultural Revolution, Qingxin plays a "word game" with her four-year-old daughter, Ming, tracing Chinese words on Ming's back for her to guess their meaning. "Milk" depicts a young man selling roses in an unnamed Chinese city while posting commentary on his blog about anachronisms on the streets of his purported "world class metropolis." "Gold Mountain" features an abstract but vivid portrait of 1877 anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco, as a woman takes shelter above a store and tries to decipher overheard English speech. While some stories feel like exercises, serving mainly to provide connective tissue for the overarching theme, Chun consistently reveals via bold and spare prose how characters grasp onto language as a means of belonging. Not every entry is a winner, but the best of the bunch show a great deal of promise. Agent: Caroline Eisenmann, Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (Sept.)
Kirkus Review
A ribbon of frustration unfurls through this collection of 12 short stories that chronicle the efforts of Chinese and Chinese American women seeking to speak the truth about their lives. The experiences of Ye's heroines--and one hero of legend, Cangjie--run from the court of the Yellow Emperor to the era of internet dating, but an inability to communicate marks all the tales. In the first story, "Stars," Luyao, a graduate student in economics who's also a wife and mother, is rendered mute by a stroke; though she's bilingual, she struggles to regain language, any language, beyond the only phrase she can utter: "hao." (Hao, the most common word in Chinese, can be translated as good and is symbolized traditionally by a kneeling woman holding a child.) In the title story, Qingxin, another young mother, tortured during the Cultural Revolution, literally eats some of her words to avoid further persecution while attempting to create the semblance of normalcy for her child by playing a calming word game. Yun, an internet bride in "Crazy English," wrestles with ways to deter a stalker she first noticed at the library, balancing the unspoken against the spoken. Ancestral experiences echo throughout the dozen stories as Ye's protagonists battle cyclical repressions and common losses: Feet are bound, children are lost, and husbands are absent, heedless, or worse. The need to understand and communicate these miseries drives Ye's women to speak in any way they can. An opposite need, that of a mother to comfort a child, propels as well. Two of the stories, "Hao" and "Milk," were awarded Pushcart Prizes, but all of these sensitive tales amplify voices that have often been silenced. These battles are fought with pens, stick figures, tender drawings on a child's back; silent screams are in the background. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Bilingual Chinese American writer, poet, and translator Ye showcases her linguistic prowess in a prodigious debut collection featuring women on both sides of the globe, many defined and confined by and reliant on motherhood. The titular "hao" recurs, meaning "Good, yes, okay. The most common word in Chinese"; its character is comprised of "a kneeling person with breasts, a woman . . . holding a child." That iconic mother-and-child scene reveals multiple layers here. In the story "Hao," a mother struggles to stay alive for her four-year-old during the vicious Cultural Revolution. They play their nightly "word game," during which the mother traces characters on her daughter's back, literally inscribing her with precious knowledge. Repeatedly beaten down, she becomes the kneeling woman, wrapped around her child; to live another day to hold her is hao. In "Stars," a stroke silences a doctoral student (and mother) except for a single word, again "hao." In "Milk," the image of a homeless woman desperately nursing her child haunts a mother trying to wean her toddler on the other side of the world. Two exemplary multigenerational stories are linked by an illiterate, silenced mother and grandmother who draws to express herself. The long-ago invention of pictographic language drives "Signs," featuring the Yellow Emperor's four-eyed record-keeper, Cangjie. Each of Ye's dozen stories astounds.
