jeffodonnell

This book was given to me as a gift and I cannot for the life of me understand why I hadn't read this earlier! A breathtaking memoir that spans a century. Chong writes so intimately, laying forth her family's history for all to see, the bad parts and the good parts. There is a quote on the front cover from The New York Times Book Review that summarizes this book so perfectly that I have to repeat it here: "Beautiful, haunting and wise, it lingers in the mind like a portrait one returns to often in a family album, and elicits the same mysterious response of love, melancholy and pride" It does stick with you. When I finished it, closing the back cover over, I felt sad. In reality what was only a matter of days, it felt longer, you live with the Chan/Chong family through 90 years of history and experiences. It leaves an impression on you, feeling as if you almost know them. With that thought in mind, I next pondered that this was actually the life of someone....it is a memoir, not a biography done by a third party. This is the life of several still living individuals, who have put their entire private lives out there for us to experience. I am unsure I would be able to do the same. It is not the story of any particularly remarkable person or event. Its rather ordinary actually, its an experience that many Chinese-Canadians experiences one way or another. It is about real people, with all their complexities. I realized this as I was frequently flip-flopping between sympathy and animosity towards May-ying; but thats how we react to real people: they are at times wonderful and less so at other times. Real people are never understood in a binary of good or bad, its a complex mix and that is what this memoir is. The story of real people and in the process, it becomes remarkable.

2022-11-14 14:08