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Who's Irish? : Storiesby Jen, Gish
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Book DescriptionNY: Knopf/Borzoi, 1999. 208 pages; dj few scuffs; front fore-edge uncut.. ISBN: 0375406212. First Edition. Hard Cover. As New/Near New. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Chapter Book. SHORT STORIES CHINESE AMERICANS SOCIAL LIFE. Book summaryA collection of stories about Chinese-Americans, including ''House, House, Home,'' a novella-length story about the marriage of a Chinese woman and a Scandinavian man and its perhaps inevitable breakup. A New York Times Notable Book in 1999.Media Reviews"Like her characters, Ms. Jen has a keen eye for the incongruities of contemporary life, and in this beautifully articulated new collection of stories, she gives us a gently satiric look at the American Dream and its fallout on those who pursue it." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "Jen's gift is for comedy that resonates, and sadnesses that arise with perfect timing from absurdities. Her subject matter is so appealing, it almost obscures the power and suppleness of her language." -- Jean Thompson, New York Times Book Review "...Jen's spry comedy comes from being able to look at Chinese and American cultures with both an outsider's and an insider's eye....Jen's fictions are reliably intelligent, funny, lively and true; they are not, however, always well shaped, and she does not seem altogether comfortable with the short-story form." -- Sylvia Brownrigg, Times Literary Supplement "Jen's plots are so brazenly unlikely that occasionally one can't help wondering whether she isn't sending up the ideal of racial harmony, which seems to be the underlying theme--message, even--in all of them. But no one who wasn't sincere could have concocted the embarrassing last paragraphs of 'House, House, Home'." -- Gabriele Annan, London Review of Books Publisher NotesIn eight wonderfully alive stories, the acclaimed author of MONA IN THE PROMISED LAND and TYPICAL AMERICAN chronicles Chinese and other Americans as they exuberantly win, lose, love, hate, overachieve, underachieve, and generally take on America with sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreaking results. Life now is not what it was a generation ago, but is it any easier? A Chinese-American woman attempts to discipline her Chinese-Irish-American grandchild, only to come up against her daughter's state-of-the-art parenting. A grown man flees to China to escape his disapproving mother, "who called every day, lest he forget she was not speaking to him." A computer expert accidentally books himself into a welfare hotel. A bohemian art student turned young mother finds herself entrenched in PTA meetings and soccer games when her WASP husband opts out and takes off for the woods. A family takes its first comically disastrous steps towards joining a country club. The stories in WHO'S IRISH? prove once again that Gish Jen is an essential writer for our time a writer who moves and entertains us as she updates the American Dream. Other Recommended Books
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