The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. [Paperback]

Frank Chin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Chinese-American experience comes under close scrutiny in these short stories by a noted playwright ( The Year of the Dragon ). A young man "of the unpronounceable name" Dirigible is the central figure in this collection; his struggles to understand his heritage are complicated by an American popular culture that enchants him even as it perpetuates abundant and often degrading stereotypes about the Chinese. The prose is frequently difficult and idiosyncratic in its attempt to convey the exotic diction of an ethnic minority; only a motivated reader will find it rewarding to navigate endless faux Faulknerian sentences. An afterword that invites the reader to imagine the effect of a bookwritten by a French Catholic who transcends a religious ban on female first-person expression by describing herself in metaphorthat opens "Once upon a time, in a once-upon-a-time China, there lived a once-upon-a-time little French girl in a little French hand laundry, in the little French town on the edge of the mighty port city of Canton," is perhaps the most successful and certainly the pithiest work.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Coffee House Press (October 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0918273447
• ISBN-13: 978-0918273444
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining right to the end, July 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. (Paperback)

If you liked Frank Chin's book Donald Duk, and enjoy the short story collections that are sprouting like weeds these days, you'll like this one. :)

And if you liked Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior, and know how much Mr. Chin doesn't like the Mulan spoof Kingston put it, then read the Afterword to this volume (this one alone is a laugh and a half).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meet Frank Chin, The Writer, February 28, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Chinatown, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. (Paperback)

Often people say that Frank Chin is an activist. This is true, but we shouldn't forget that he is also a writer. After all, it was his play Chickencoop Chinaman that help open doors for Asian American artists. In this book you will read eight great short stories by Frank Chin. The stories include: "Railroad Standard Time", "The Eat and Run Midnight People", "The Chinatown Kid", "The Only Real Day", "Yes, Young Daddy", "Give the Enemy Sweet Sissies and Women to Infatuate Him, and Jades and Silks to Blind Him with Greed", "A Chinese Lady Dies", and "The Sons of Chan". After reading these stories, you will understand why Chin won the American Book Award.