Book summary

Ruth Young and Art Kamen live together in San Francisco, and the deterioration of their relationships renders Ruth unable to speak. Her Chinese mother, LuLing, who now has Alzheimer's, is another complicating factor in her life, but the diary she kept as a young woman still exists, and when Ruth reads it she comes to a better understanding of her family's dark history, her mother's sadness, and her own problems. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.