The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage [Paperback]

Ellen Graf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 2011

Ellen is forty-six, divorced, and having no luck with personal ads when her Chinese girlfriend comes up with a plan: she has a brother in China, Zhong-hua, who’s lonely too. Maybe they’d like each other? Taking a leap of faith that most of us wouldn’t dare, Ellen travels to China to meet him. Though they speak only a few words of each other’s language, there’s an unspoken connection between them and they decide to marry.


What follows is a remarkably touching and humorous story of two people from completely different worlds trying to make a marriage work. Settling in at Ellen’s ramshackle farmhouse in upstate New York, they quickly discover the cultural chasm that lies between them. Ellen and her teenage daughter decide to adopt a policy of nonjudgment as Zhong-hua lobbies to sell their refrigerator (“Just three people, no need”), serves them giant sea slugs for dinner, and brusquely nudges Ellen aside without an “excuse me” (“Family no need these kind of words”).


Zhong-hua is not the type to offer his wife impromptu smiles or hugs, but in bed at night he holds her tightly like she’s “something long lost and precious that might not live until morning.” The Natural Laws of Good Luck is an unusual and exquisitely written love story—one that will resonate with anyone who has ever contemplated with wonder the spaces that exist between us and those we care about.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the funniest and most moving love stories to come around in a long time.”—Library Journal

“A poignant, witty look at cultural misunderstandings, the intimacies of marriage, and the deep bonds of human connection.”—Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden


“A compelling read for anyone with an interest in the nuts and bolts of how to keep a marriage together.”—Times Union

“A delightful account of East meets West in a loving relationship, complete with inevitable culture clashes resulting from wildly different ethnicities, customs, and background experiences. This appealing, true tale of adaptation (an ongoing process required in any marriage but taken here to extremes) is infused with an unforced sweetness and offers heartfelt and authentic proof of what we do for love.”—Booklist

“Ellen Graf and her husband, Lu Zhong-hua, take the realm of marriage and spin it on an irresistible new axis. Quite simply the greatest love story I’ve ever read.”—Aimee Liu, author of Cloud Mountain

About the Author

Ellen Graf is a writer and sculptor. She has received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant, and she holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. 

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Trumpeter (March 22, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590308336
• ISBN-13: 978-1590308332
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #246,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful storytelling, and what a story!, August 8, 2009

By 

Toto "[e-mail]" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage (Hardcover)

I spent hours in one of those massive bookstores in a God forsaken place (I'm waiting for an Amazon order) trying to pull out something good to read. Blah, blah, blah. Then I picked up this book and I knew quickly that it was going to hold my interest and probably be a treasure: I was right.

I'm around the author's age and I've been divorced forever, so I was interested to see what another woman dealt the same hand is up to. Wow, you can't imagine. For starters, Ellen Graf was living an interesting life when she was single: she has a handful of children with unusual names and she raised them in an old farmhouse in upstate New York, and she's an artist. The author is unusually perceptive and her descriptions of nature, including people, are delicious. Graf's skill at capturing dialog is breathtaking, and her timing is flawless: the book is funny. Reading it is a vicarious and wild ride through the experience of marrying a barely known man from China. There's also a lot of depth to the book in considering China's history and our cultural differences.

"The Natural Laws of Good Luck" is a beautiful testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. It's about love, not platitudes, but the real nitty-gritty stuff. I applaud the couple's determination to forge a life together and Graf's skill in sharing it with us. (Maybe fish do need bicycles).

There is so much to this fascinating story, and unlike another reviewer, I found it to be well-ordered and spellbinding. I hope it becomes a best seller, because it deserves to be. I won't forget this one.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Story -- Beautifully Told, August 7, 2009

By 

Vicki Lane - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage (Hardcover)

I loved this book, tangents and all.

What Ellen wanted was someone to share her life: someone with whom to watch the circling hawk, the setting sun -- someone to help her with her ramshackle farmhouse. She imagined a man with "a sweet and burly personality, and he came over after work in his tight, dirty blue jeans. He was wily and strong and always smiling. He would swing me up over his head, I would bubble with laughter, and then we would fix stuff."

This is the story of the man she got -- a stoic survivor of China's Cultural Revolution, a man who spoke almost no English, who in the beginning broke far more things than he fixed, but the man with whom she fell in love and began slowly to piece together a life.

Romantic, practical, and maddeningly impractical by turns -- the story of Ellen and Zhong-hua is, in the end, a love story and a lesson in acceptance. I loved the poetic descriptions, the wry humor, the philosophical insights, and the down-the-rabbit-hole quality of the entire adventure that is the marriage of these two amazing people.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and uplifting view of marriage, August 19, 2009

By 

Bearette24 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage (Hardcover)

I really liked this book. It took me a few minutes to get used to the author's voice, which was a little unconventional, but by the time I got to the meat of the book -- the bicultural differences between her and her husband -- I was enjoying myself. The author is excellent at capturing Zhong-hua's sometimes hilarious, sometimes insightful fractured English and his philosophical worldview, which he developed after years of suffering under Chairman Mao. I thought a number of his aphorisms and thoughts were wonderful ways to deal with stress. Also, I think most people would find this book relatable - who hasn't sometimes been stunned by the differences between husband and wife in a marriage?