Cultural Revolution: Stories [Hardcover]

Norman Wong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1993

This sequence of 12 linked stories portrays the Americanization of the Lau family, and especially of the "number one Chinese son", Michael Lau, who comes of age with the secret that he is homosexual. While visiting China with his father, Michael discovers just how painfully his plans clash with his father's dreams for his future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wong's debut collection of 11 linked stories sparsely chronicles four generations of a Chinese-American family. A woman's reluctant journey from mainland China to Hong Kong as she escapes the invading Japanese frames the brief, absorbing opening section, "Mai Wah." Dreams shape several stories in the second section, in which Mai Wah's grown grandson, Wei, and his family adapt to their new lives in Honolulu. In "A Nice Chinese Girl," Wei dreams of owning a car in order to properly date Marie, who dreams of owning a restaurant; in "Open House," Wei's cousins dream of buying a new home in the suburbs. The best stories deal with Michael, Wei's son, inching toward accepting his homosexuality. In "The Chinese Barber," Michael develops an infatuation with an American boy he meets at a mall; in "Ordinary Chinese People," he attempts suicide, distraught over the inattentiveness of his track coach. Irony fuels the final section, "Cultural Revolution," in which Wei returns to China to retrace his grandmother's escape for Michael, who now eschews everything Chinese. Wong's choppy prose works well in conveying his characters' difficulty with English, but it robs these finely crafted stories of rich detail and prevents them from achieving the lyrical moments the material suggests.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wong's collection of 11 interwoven stories begins with Wei, a Chinese immigrant and only son, as he leaves the bustling streets of Hong Kong to begin a new life on the lush island of O'ahu. Though East and West meet somewhat comfortably in Hawaii, Wei encounters good and bad when race, class, culture, and sexuality overlap. Michael, Wei's only son, wrestles with the problems of being a child of immigrant parents. His internal struggles with the role of first son, coupled with the exhilaration and fear of his emerging homosexuality and his efforts to fit into Chinese and American cultures, make for an interesting, well-written, and poignant story. Wong highlights the inevitable problems that result when immigrant parents' hopes and dreams clash with their children's in a rapidly changing world that is very different--and yet in some ways the same--as the world they left behind. Highly recommended for Asian American fiction collections and gay and lesbian collections.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 177 pages
• Publisher: Persea Books; 1st edition (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892551976
• ISBN-13: 978-0892551972
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,949,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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