Customer Reviews

Simple Recipes: Stories

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This writer will grip your imagination and not let go. She etches an exquisite visual picture with each sentence she writes. Not only will you feel you are in each scene, but you will remember each scene in detail. There is a power with this precision of detail. Like an exquisitely crafted and edited piece of cinematography, there is no surplus or redundance---only crystal clear visual and auditory images that will transfix you, and make you more than when you began the reading.

Fans of the short story will want to add this collection by Madeleine Thien to their bookshelves. With beauty and brevity of language, Thien takes the reader on journeys to the inner core of her characters.

Each story deals with an individual's internal issues in response to an individual relationship within the family structure. Mother-daughter, father-daughter, husband-wife, and friend-friend relationships are examined in such exquisite detail that the reader will find something to draw them into the stories.

In each one of the seven, Thien wields her delicate power with words to paint a picture of a person trying to bring together their individuality with desire for family. She seems to have a direct connection with her characters' view of the world and of their place in it. She tells the story from one point of view, yet the reader gets a sense of how all of the characters feel about themselves as well as the other people in the story.

In the title piece, "Simple Recipes," we meet a girl coming to grips with losing the hero worship she has always had for her father. This man is able to work wonders with rice, but cannot turn the same magic on his rebellious teenage son. A fight escalates to rage and a subsequent harsh punishment. The girl wonders how her father can have this dichotomy to him, of being so gentle with her while losing his temper with his son.

"Four Days From Oregon" examines both the marital and mother-child relationships. A restless woman runs away with her lover, three daughters in tow. The children want to return home, unsure of this new man in their lives, but their mother needs this time to make up her mind.

"A Map of the City" deals with how her relationship with her father overshadows other parts of her life. In "Alchemy," a young girl tries to find a way to help her friend tell the truth and stop unwanted attention from her father. Three other equally intriguing and well-written stories round out the collection.

Although some of these stories have appeared in both American and Canadian magazines, this is a first book for Madeleine Thien. The short story is definitely her medium and she has already won praise for her work from established masters. After reading this book, you will understand why.

An insightful and spiritually filled book about the Asian North American experience. I won't peg it as Asian American. The experience is not all that unique to America, although the American culture does lead to a different set of circumstances than those existing in Canada. However, as the issues here are more internal and within the family, it has more universality than the Asian American experience. Even if it is fictitious, there's enough reality in there that it probably just some true stories with altered details and circumstances that are crafted to fit together to express what the author wishes to. I know, with respect to the nature of the story topics, because I am Asian. I can identify with the stories to some extent or another, be it from my own experiences or other Asians' who I have known over the years. Ms Thien's writing skills are very good and the voice is genuine, and the stories will make you think and expose you well and fairly to the world Asian North Americans live in if you don't know much about it already. I'm just not the same personality as she and her characters and so I sometimes question how the stories would end were I to write them, but that's just differences in points of views. I can very much appreciate Ms Thien's writings and would recommend it.

Truly gifted. What else can I say about Thien? In my mind she has a rare gift for writing that you don't see very often. She has an imagination and is well educated.

Warning to new writers: This woman will make you feel absolutely inadequate as a writer.

I eagerly look forward to her next book. GET IT!

Complex and sorrowful. The stories remind us how the people we know best still surprise us. A poetic take on the Asian American immigrant experience. Crystal clear, beautiful writing. Highly recommended.

These are marvelous stories. Very moving, beautifully crafted, absorbing. We read this with my book club and all of us hugely enjoyed it. What a wonderful writer!