Customer Reviews

American Woman: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

As a Brit I have to confess that I wasn't sure I was going to like this book because the title was enough to frighten me away! I mean what do I know about American women? However the blurb intrigued me and I do like books that are "different" and thought provoking so I took the metaphorical bull by the horns and settled down to read it, expecting to read it over a course of several days. All I can say is, "What a gem of a book!" and please can Miss Choi write to my employers and explain to them why I was three hours late to work, it's her fault, I was so engrossed I lost track of time!

I won't lie to you and say that this is an easy book to read, it isn't but it is worth the effort and it is strangely gripping, and even frightening in parts. The protagonist (and heroine) Jenny is suposedly a radical living in a time of political, economical and social upheaval. It is the 1970s and the world is no longer made up patriots and nationalists. Students are demanding change, and European ideas and politics are invading the consciousness of an insulated nation. Jenny herself is the daughter of a Japanese American man who suffered internment in the 1940s and though in the beginning she calls herself a radical, she has serious doubts about the things she has done in the past and what she is about to do. Herself a fugitive from the law, (she helped in a bombing of some Draft Offices) she is called out of hiding to help three young radicals, one of them recently the kidnap victim of the other two. It here we are introduced to Pauline, fragile, confused, and perhaps more dedicated to the cause than her once-upon-a-time captors who treat her with benign contempt mingled with reverence.

Often humourous, sometimes tragic, we are drawn into the shadowy world that Jenny and her friends inhabit. Hiding out in a farmhouse with the three dysfunctional radicals, who sprout Marxism and put themselves through harsh physical training for the war that they are sure that they will have fight in when the time comes, Jenny finds herself questioning her own ideals, along with the lack of compromise on all sides, both within the establishment she despises and the young radicals themselves. Jenny even questions even the passion that drives her charges along with the right way forward in a world built on lies, hypocrisy, racism and social injustice.

As Jenny and Pauline forge a tentative friendship, perhaps built on their mutual similarities and differences, Jenny reminisces about her life, her love affairs and her bittersweet relationship with her proud but deeply cynical father.

Jenny is very much an anti-heroine, both loved and despised in the same breath but she instils sympathy from the reader, where as Pauline is more of a spoilt little rich girl trying to break free from the constraints of her upbringing with only a glimmer of sympathy from the reader because of her emotional fragility.

There are many other interesting characters in the book like Jenny's ex-lover/friend Frazer who brings her out of hiding in the first place, and the other two radicals (once Pauline's captors) who want to change the world in a day but mostly this book is about Jenny, and Pauline with everything else weaving its way around them to bring the story, plot and climax of the novel its final conclusion.

An intellectually stimulating, intriguing and compulsive read is my final word on this novel. "American Women" can be read by readers of any nationality because all of us, young or old can remember a time when we thought the world we lived in could be changed beyond all recognition by the power of our voices, the passion of our beliefs, and the rebellious acts of our bodies, only to shed bitter tears of maturity when we realised that the establishment we sought to defeat wasn't going to fall to its knees and change was a concept of the mind rather than a physical reality.

I thought I knew the Patty Hearst story pretty well, but I was riveted by this novel. It's not just that it's told from the perspective of someone usually considered a minor character in the affair--a young Japanese-American woman who's on the lam for her own reasons--or that the writing is great, though it is. Choi captures a moment in the seventies when politics led some young people to make disastrous, brutal decisions. But the most interesting choices in the book have to do with love and friendships--with how they're formed, and how they're betrayed. Can't wait for the movie.

I have to agree with the reviewer a while back, who observed that making Shimada a daughter of camp internees who ALSO spent her childhood in Hiroshima and who ALSO later became involved with the S.L.A. is just a little too much. The first fact alone would have been enough. Choi was smart to withhold this information until relatively late in the novel, but even this structural decision can't keep Shimada's psychological trajectory from feeling too tidy.

Otherwise, I think this novel features fine (but not brilliant) psychological insight into the characters, solid plot construction, and most of all, an ambitious exploration of large questions regarding class, race, gender, political and social change, idealism and "American" self-invention. Choi's intelligence is a true pleasure, and this is her greatest strength.

However, the actual writing is a sticking point for me. Sentence by sentence, page by page, chapter by chapter, the novel feels insufficiently compressed, which makes it far too slow. The weak passages water down the strong passages. (If it had been 70-100 pages shorter, the book would be much stronger.) And sorry to say this, but stylistically, I find the writing unmemorable. There are far more gifted stylists in her generation, such as Lahiri, Haslett, Diaz, Ali, etc. But substance is her strength, like I said. I definitely look forward to the next book.

This is a must-read. I liked Susan Choi's first novel very much, and recommended it to a number of people, but "American Woman" is fabulous at a whole different level. Beautifully written; compelling psychology; great settings; intense & fast-paced plot. This is really on my short list of impressive MAJOR novels by American novelists: it's not to say that they're always my favorites, but Choi's novel deserves to be compared to Franzen's The Corrections, to Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, to Whitehead's John Henry Days. Ambitious but also brilliantly executed. You must read this book!

This book is a gorgeous, unpredictable mystery--I turned the pages with my stomach in knots, wondering what would happen next. The story is at once familiar --the radicals with their VWs, the description of San Francisco and Berkeley in the late '60s--and deeply moving. Choi writes about these hopeful, striving characters with honesty and quiet decency, and in telling their stories raises unsettling questions about the stories we see being played out on the news every day.

First, on period references:
The dearth of period references may actually strengthen the work. Having grown up in the 1970's, I think forced references to pop cultural 1970's knick-knacks would seem a bit contrived, given the larger reality that many of us were riding around in old cars from the 1950's and 1960's.

And since much of the novel takes place in small towns, it's logical that these places weren't bastions of up-to-the-minute 1970's newness.

Choi's description of Mrs. Fowler and Dolly were spot-on, because one of the really memorable things about the 1970's was how, in the midst of "radical" new fashions and new ideas, there was such a sharp contrast to a larger group of people wanting to hold on to more traditional "American" ideas. For every Asian-American family we knew during the Vietnam War era, there were 100 Caucasian families who unquestioningly hung their U.S. flags in the yard.

What seemed more significant in terms of period reference was the outdated thinking, bold, unrealistic ambitions, and broad claims of the so-called radicals. They are, in fact, just children playing with ideas that they have only received, and haven't quite thought through. What's more 1970's than that?

Second, on culture:
I read American Woman a few years ago and was dazzled. I've only recently read the reviews posted here. I'm puzzled by the reviews that describe Jenny Shimada as a not-fully-developed character.

It was my impression that the character seems not fully developed because Jenny Shimada is, in fact, emotionally stunted within the broader U.S. culture, which was, at the time, MUCH less integrated than it is now.

Jenny Shimada's suppressed emotional anger (which plays out - unusually - in physical violence) seemed in line with the emotional dislocation experienced by many Asians in the first few decades after WWII. Just as Richard's Wright Bigger Thomas is a product of his culture-struggling-within-a-culture, Jenny Shimada may be (note, MAY be) read as a product of her own culture's specific experience during that specific time.

I actually felt a deep emotional bond with Shimada, who, like many older Asians in my own Asian-American family, was raised not to be emotionally expressive, but who felt deeply and intensely the turbulence of the American experience in the post-war years.

I am somewhat chagrined to ask this question, but I wonder if Choi's carefully drawn character rings "truer" for many older Asian-Americans because of our peculiar experience of living in (and loving) an American culture that is about "living large", while our own cultural orientation and upbringing during that time demanded that we shy from exactly that. Quite a different issue for our children, born after the 1980's.

My question isn't about how race affects the reading of the novel, necessarily, as it is about how culture affects our reading of the same novel. E.g., I think a lot of Japanese housewives could probably relate better to Flaubert's Madame Bovary than would U.S. housewives, because the structured societies of 19th-century France and modern-day Japan are much more similar. (Come to think of it, Shimada and Bovary seem more alike than not in some ways....)

For the same reason, critics constantly compare the modern Chinese actress Gong Li to U.S. movie stars of the 1930's - the modern mobility of American women now makes Greta Garbo's emotional reticence seem less relevant than, say, Cameron Diaz' open smile.

Since Choi comes from both a part-Asian and from a broader U.S. culture, I am curious about how much of what Choi wrote into the character was conscious, and how much of it was simply empathetically derived.

I'm also intrigued by some of the reviews here. It seems that some older female reviewers are more receptive to the book. Which again, underlines the possibility that it's not so much about race as about culture, and how the mobility of women may have changed so radically in the last sixty years that we don't realize how our reading of characters has changed.

This is the type of book I typically avoid, but before I had a chance to run I was drawn in by this engrossing account of one fugitive trying to help three more people continue their evasion of the police. I was not far into the book (okay, chapter two) when I realized I was in a fictional account of the Patty Hearst story. For those younger than myself, Hearst is the grandaughter of media giant William Randolph Hearst (see: Kane, Citizen) who was kidnapped by the unknown SLA in 1974, then became devoted to their cause and turned to robbing banks. All but three of the SLA were killed in a shootout and Hearst was arrested about a year later.

But Choi avoids some simple fictionalized version of an already bizarre event (this is a time when the idea of truth being stranger than fiction is clearly true). Instead, the "American Woman" is Jenny Shimada, a Japanese-American who is in hiding because of her interest in bomb making, which has put her boyfriend in jail. Shimada has been avoiding exposure by living in a small town doing renovation work for an older woman. Now she is recruited to help these three and we quickly see that all "radicals" are not cut from the same cloth. While she likes to blow up buildings, she does so when no one is in them and she makes sure they belong to the government. The SLA members have kidnapped an heiress and are as interested in armed warfare as they are about their principles, which seem stretched at best.

Choi does not judge any of her characters and all are especially well drawn. Shimada is a complex person who seems to have it all figured out one minute, and is completely lost the next. In other words, she is a real person (and yes, she too is based on a real person). Pauline, the Patty Hearst of the story, is interesting not because she is supposed to by Hearst, but because we see how someone taken out of their element and thrown into the extreme opposite responds. She goes from pampered college student to bound, blindfolded, and gagged in closet for days. Her relationship with two of her captors is abusive and dependent, yet she is also drawn to Jenny. What she is not drawn to is her past life -- at one point her and Jenny drive by her old house, but she has no desire to return. That part of her life is gone.

Which raises the question of what happens when we do disappear. When they are captured (oops, late spoiler alert for those who did not guess it) they refer to Pauline's year of hiding as "the lost year." But who lost the year? Pauline certainly did not. This plays out as a modern version of if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? Choi is playing with the idea of how our lives are and are not dependent on others involved with us, others viewing us, and others we pass by in life. While it seems obvious that losing track of others does not mean they have lost themselves, we often make that assumption -- "they fell off the face of the earth." As Choi is showing, life continues even when the circumstances change. Jenny and Pauline disappear for different reasons, their circumstances both change, and they themselves change, but that does not equate with being lost. But it does raises questions about how we define ourselves when those around us who do define us are gone. What makes make Jenny who she is and which is the "real" Pauline.

Choi's prose is full and worth a slow read. The book is cinematic in its layout and she paints clear pictures everywhere she goes. The last section of the book loses some of the hold after the tension has disappeared, but it adds another interesting note to the story in comparing how fame impacts what should be similar situations for two people.

Finally, we can return to Choi's title and spend time defining the two words of the title -- American and woman. In what ways is a Japanese-American raised in Japan for many years and an acknowledged bomber of American government properties an American? As the story unfolds the ideas of "woman" are also explored with a range of options considered. In other words, Choi leaves us a lot to think about.

Some of the reviewers here have a problem with Choi's narrow focus on Jenny and seemed to have wanted a big picture story fictionalizing the SLA and the Hearst kidnapping, but hey-- that's not the book she wrote. She wrote this one, and it is a fine look at it from an interesting perspective.
The main character, Jenny, becomes caretaker and friend of the (maybe and maybe not) brainwashed media-heiress, Pauline, after the last remaining members of the militant group that kidnapped her commit another crime that horrifies Jenny into begging Pauline to split from them with her. Jenny and Pauline become best friends and much of the story is devoted to their friendship.
I do think Jenny was a good character to focus on because of her unique point of view. She was outside the militant group enough to make observations about them while at the same time close enough to them (what was left of them) to get to know them well. Having been a radical herself she can relate to their goals and motivations, but seeing their crimes gives her pause about her own youthful acts of violence.
The writing is good. There are occasional clunky passages, but they're not terribly frequent. I do agree with the reviewer who said a little more 70s flavor would have been nice.

The main flaw in this novel is that the author has only a superficial feel for the 1970's. Reading this book is like reading a travel guide about your hometown that leaves you wondering whether the author has ever been there.

Susan Choi's first novel THE FOREIGN STUDENT signaled the arrival of a sensitive new voice unafraid to tackle tender issues of national guilt and immigrant isolation in the Land of Dreams. In her new novel AMERICAN WOMAN Choi further establishes her credentials as an important American writer who manages to research historical data so well that turning that media blitz-hype into a novel results in a compelling probe of the minds of youth at odds with the society that raised them.

Succinctly based on the 1974 SLA kidnapping of Patricia Hearst and its aftermath, Choi has played out this tragic but intensely credible bit of American history in the form of a series of character studies of those involved. The main character Jenny is a Japanese American girl involved with the radical groups who struck out against the Vietnam War, the hypocrisy of a 'democratic' America, and the abuse of the police in neglecting the poor people of this country. Choi's Jenny makes us re-examine the motivation that perpetrated the radicals of that period and if this book has no other result than to cause us all to re-think the important role of students who questioned the state of the Union, then that raised flag would be sufficient. But this finely wrought novel goes beyond that exploratory surgery and finds analogies to the reactions to the interment of the Japanese during WW II (Jenny's father was one of those interred and greatly influenced her perception of right and wrong in America), to the effect of isolation (read imprisonment/segregation) on young minds at odds with the status quo, to the power of bonding between individuals whose common needs may in fact be disparate.

AMERICAN WOMAN is a slow read: Choi knows how to create that pregnant ennui that encapsulates feral individuals awaiting the backlash of their actions. But during those slow pages Choi manages to spread her canvas on the page and paint immaculate images of nature at rest and at fury. In the end she gives us a group of people not all of whom we can admire (or even care for), but at the same time she molds thoughtful minds that accept abuse because of their beliefs, who continue to foster dreams against all plausible odds. And just when you may tire of the shenanigans of Choi's 'cast', you are reminded that this story on a different level DID happen. Stay with this book to the end and you will embrace or perhaps even question your own idealistic youth that dwells back there someplace in the 1970s.