My Rating: 4 stars
Two years ago, I read Vanessa Hua’s debut novel A
River of Stars, which presented a realistic take on the Chinese
immigrant experience against the backdrop of the “birth tourism” phenomenon in
the United States. I enjoyed that book
quite a bit, not just for the story and the characters, but also the way Hua
was able to work the cultural references into the plot so smoothly. I remember thinking at that time how much I looked
forward to Hua’s next book and hoping that she wouldn’t make us wait too
long. Well, the wait isn’t exactly over
yet, since Hua’s next novel has yet to materialize, however a compilation of
short stories that she had written over the years was re-released earlier this
month, in a collection which includes newer stories that weren’t part of the version
released back in 2016.
This particular collection consists of 13 stories featuring
protagonists from various backgrounds and all different walks of life, but with
one commonality – the characters were either immigrants or from immigrant
families, with the shared experience of trying to navigate two worlds: the one they came from and the one in which
they currently lived. Of course, given
the title of the book, each of the story dealt with the underlying theme of
deception – whether it was the characters deceiving themselves, their families,
or others. With that said though, these
stories actually went much deeper than that, as Hua covered a lot of ground in
terms of topics, such as identity and belonging, family, love, marriage and relationships,
religion, infidelity, loneliness and isolation, etc. One of the things that made this collection
stand out for me was the diverse nature of the characters -- who hailed from
places such as Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, Serbia, Africa
– as well as how creatively different and varied each of the stories was. Not only that, the other thing that impressed
me was the way Hua was able to incorporate aspects of each culture so seamlessly
into the stories, all of which were immersive and interesting to read. It’s certainly not often that we get such a
varied portrayal of immigrant life, encompassing
so many different voices and perspectives, all in a single story collection.
This is an excellent collection that I enjoyed and absolutely
recommend! My only complaint is that
these are short stories, which are “incomplete” by nature, and so like I do when
I read any short story collection, I felt like I was left hanging when each
story ended abruptly. Some of the
stories I actually felt a sense of disappointment when I got to the end because
the plot was at a climactic point, but then I turn the page and the story is
over – several times I felt like the rug was being pulled from under me just
when things were getting good. But of
course, I have this problem with all short story collections in general, which
is why I will always prefer full-length novels more.
With this collection, I actually liked all the stories, so
to pick which ones were ‘favorites’ is extremely difficult. Instead, I am just going to point out which
stories stood out the most to me: “Line,
Please” and “Loaves and Fishes” (because of the familiarity with the Hong Kong
culture and setting, though the parallels to former HK celebrity Edison Chen’s
real-life scandal were way too obvious!), “For What They Shared” (this was the
most cleverly-written out of all the stories), “The Responsibility of Deceit” (wonderfully
written story about an interracial gay couple dealing with the fallout from one
partner’s ‘coming out’ to his traditional Chinese parents), “VIP Tutoring”
(this one gave me a sense of déjà vu, as I actually know people like those in
the story, with very similar experiences), “The Older the Ginger” (probably one
of the most culturally-resonant out of all the stories), and “Room at the Table”
(this was the story that I personally resonated with the most).
Received ARC from Counterpoint Press via Edelweiss.
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