As I sit down to write this review, it dawns on me that I have now read two road trip themed books back-to-back -- while this was definitely unintentional, I appreciate how different the experience reading each book was. Specifically, what I found most interesting was seeing how two authors from entirely different backgrounds take the same road trip theme in completely opposite directions, yet if we look closely, both books actually share something else in common: they are both timely and poignant responses to the chaotic nature of the world we live in currently, which is a connection I was not expecting, but I’m glad I got to experience.
Winnie M. Li mentions in her Acknowledgments note that the idea for her novel What We Left Unsaid was sparked by her realization that, as a Taiwanese-American who grew up in the United States, she “had never done the Great American Road Trip – and was maybe missing out on some seminal life experience,” so she gathered her partner Sam and her two year old son Timo and together, went on a three week road trip to do “research” for this book. The result is a profound and eye-opening exploration of not just family, race, and culture, but also what it means to be an American, especially one of foreign descent.
Li’s fictional story revolves around the 3 Chu siblings: Bonnie, the ever-responsible eldest sister who married into wealth and lives in the Massachusetts suburbs with her husband Chris and 3 sons; Kevin, the precious middle son living a well-to-do life with this family in Chicago; and Alex, the free-spirited and rebellious baby sister who lives with her partner Nya in London. All three of them are called back home to California, where their parents live, when their mother becomes gravely ill. But before they are allowed to visit, their mother makes an odd request – she wants them to complete the road trip to the Grand Canyon that their family was in the middle of 30 years ago, but ended up aborting due to an incident that had occurred on their way there. So the Chu siblings decide to do a road trip via Route 66, with a stop at the Grand Canyon before heading to California. In chapters that alternate between past and present, and told from the perspectives of each sibling, the present-day road trip is juxtaposed with the one from their childhood, with the details of that long-ago incident revealed bit by bit over the course of the story.
This was a story that resonated deeply with me – not the road trip part of course, as I dislike driving in general and my motion sickness makes riding in a car for hours on end unfathomable. Rather, what I connected with most were the three siblings’ experiences growing up in a Chinese immigrant household and the various cultural nuances that influence the family’s dynamics – specifically, the issues with communication amongst the various family members that cause so many misunderstandings in the story. To this point, I feel that the author, Winnie M. Li, captured our culture’s reticence and propensity towards silence perfectly. Indeed, the title What We Left Unsaid is extremely fitting: not only does it refer to the incident that happened on the aborted Grand Canyon trip, but more specifically, it is a particularly apt explanation of the simultaneously fraught yet loving dynamic that underlies each sibling’s individual relationship with their parents – relationship dynamics that I’m more than familiar with due to the outsized role they play in my own life everyday. In fact, at so many points throughout the story, I couldn’t help nodding my head in recognition at many of the familiar thoughts, feelings, and experiences that the characters go through as they reflect on both their place in the family as well as within society.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one, even though, admittedly, some parts were uncomfortable to read, precisely because the scenario hit too close to home -- looking back at it now, I appreciate the way reading about these dynamics made me reflect on my own family situation and relationships. I would definitely recommend this book, though with the caveat that, undoubtedly, each reader’s reaction to it will be different. While I agree with some of the same things that other readers found annoying with the story (for example – Kevin and Alex’s constant bickering, which got on my nerves at times), I feel this was a worthwhile read overall, and also a timely one given our current environment.
Received ARC from Atria/Emily Bestler Books via NetGalley.
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