Status
Available
Publication
Penguin Press (2022), 416 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML:A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORSâ?? CHOICE SELECTION * A MALALA BOOK CLUB PICK * AN INDIE NEXT PICK * A FAVORITE BOOK OF 2022 BY NPR AND BOOK RIOT * A MUST-READ MARCH 2022 BOOK BY TIME, VANITY FAIR, EW AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS * A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY GOODREADS, NYLON, BUZZFEED AND MORE A Taiwanese American womanâ??s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel. Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about â??Chinese-yâ?ť things again. But after years of grueling research, all she has to show for her efforts are junk food addiction and stomach pain. When she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives one afternoon, she convinces herself itâ??s her ticket out of academic hell. But Ingridâ??s in much deeper than she thinks. Her clumsy exploits to unravel the noteâ??s message lead to an explosive discovery, upending not only her sheltered life within academia but her entire world beyond it. With her trusty friend Eunice Kim by her side and her rival Vivian Vo hot on her tail, together they set off a roller coaster of mishaps and misadventures, from book burnings and OTC drug hallucinations, to hot-button protests and Yellow Peril 2.0 propaganda. In the aftermath, nothing looks the same to Ingridâ??including her gentle and doting fiancĂ©, Stephen Greene. When he embarks on a book tour with the super kawaii Japanese author heâ??s translated, doubts and insecurities creep in for the first timeâ?¦ As the events Ingrid instigated keep spiraling, sheâ??ll have to confront her sticky relationship to white men and white institutionsâ??and, most of all, herself. For readers of Paul Beattyâ??s The Sellout and Charles Yuâ??s Interior Chinatown, this uproarious and bighearted satire is a blistering send-up of privilege and power in America, and a profound reckoning of individual complicity and unspoken rage. In this electrifying debut novel from a provocative new voice, Elaine Hsieh Chou asks who gets to tell our storiesâ??and how the s… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member doryfish
Best satire I've read in years, academic or otherwise. Laughing to keep from crying is truly a cope.
LibraryThing member Clara53
At first, it strikes you as a quirky tale of academia, of identity crisis, love, hope, rebellion - hysterically witty, at times with dark overtones. But then it gets more serious - the author pokes serious fun at important political and moral issues of the day, even if exaggerating them somewhat.
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Bitter notes creep in, but justifiably so. The plot line that holds everything together has an unusual premise. Plus, it's always refreshing to see surrounding life through the eyes of an immigrant (or a so-called immigrant - as the protagonist, a daughter of Taiwanese parents, was born in the US), as well as frank ideas of what, according to the main character (or the author) many white people think (but maybe not say) about Asians. And of course, the title has more than one meaning! Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Ingrid Yang’s Ph.D. dissertation on the poetry of Xiao-Wen Chou is going slowly. She’s in her eighth year of the graduate program at Barnes University. She is on the verge of turning 30. She has a wedding to plan with her fiancé. She’s addicted to antacid tablets. And oh, yeah, she may have
At times funny, at times serious, this campus novel captures the desperation of the young scholar writing an interminable dissertation. But Ingrid’s discovery is about to blow the roof off of both her field of study and her institution. She’s a bit conflicted about that, but given her myriad other internal conflicts surrounding race, sex, family, and, y’know stuff, it’s just part of the package.
There are set pieces here that are very funny and well-constructed even if the overall arc of the story feels contrived. There is a variability in tone and subject matter that makes the writing seem uneven. As though the novel has been written over a very long period with the input of too many readers perhaps. Or maybe it’s just that Chou simply has too much to say. Certainly she seems to have thought long and hard about racial identity in America. You could well imagine her writing a very different novel on the same themes.
And maybe it’s just me, but the central characters — Ingrid and her best friend Eunice — seem more like adolescents, both emotionally and in where their interests lie outside of the university, and also in some of their actions. Or maybe I’m just old now and young people in their late twenties are really like this.
In any case, there were certainly parts of this novel that I enjoyed and other parts that hit (almost too) close to home. I look forward to whatever Chou ends up writing next.
Gently recommended.
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just discovered that the most revered Chinese-American poet ever, in whose research archive she has been toiling for years, might not be who he claims to be.At times funny, at times serious, this campus novel captures the desperation of the young scholar writing an interminable dissertation. But Ingrid’s discovery is about to blow the roof off of both her field of study and her institution. She’s a bit conflicted about that, but given her myriad other internal conflicts surrounding race, sex, family, and, y’know stuff, it’s just part of the package.
There are set pieces here that are very funny and well-constructed even if the overall arc of the story feels contrived. There is a variability in tone and subject matter that makes the writing seem uneven. As though the novel has been written over a very long period with the input of too many readers perhaps. Or maybe it’s just that Chou simply has too much to say. Certainly she seems to have thought long and hard about racial identity in America. You could well imagine her writing a very different novel on the same themes.
And maybe it’s just me, but the central characters — Ingrid and her best friend Eunice — seem more like adolescents, both emotionally and in where their interests lie outside of the university, and also in some of their actions. Or maybe I’m just old now and young people in their late twenties are really like this.
In any case, there were certainly parts of this novel that I enjoyed and other parts that hit (almost too) close to home. I look forward to whatever Chou ends up writing next.
Gently recommended.
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LibraryThing member bobbieharv
Couldn't stand this book and had to skim to the end. Very heavy-handed - it was described as "An uproarious and bighearted satire," which is why I borrowed it from the library, but I found it totally un-uproarious and mean to boot. And very far-fetched.
LibraryThing member TheLoisLevel
I have to admit that the cover drew me in. The story is weird, and you have to be interested in academia, but if you are, you will find it funny. It's kind of a madcap girl's adventure and is NOT a romantic comedy. I found the details about Asia, especially Japan, which I know the most about, spot
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on. Show Less
LibraryThing member Narshkite
My third novel this year that can reasonably be classified as academic satire (Vladimir and The Netanyahus are the others), and the third of these I have really loved. Disorientation takes on academia head-on, but to be fair it's primary focus is really on the marginalization and fetishization of
The action is centered on an 8th year PhD Asian Studies student named Ingrid Chou. For those not familiar with the doctoral world, the 8th year is generally your defend or die year because it is the year most funding stops. Ingrid has been hustled into East Asian Studies by the white Department Chair Michael Bartholomew, largely because she is an Asian Female, but also because the school's lit program has been largely defunded and now there are few tenure track jobs for those who go down that path. Ingrid's money is contingent on researching an Asian American poet, known as the "Asian Robert Frost", which poet attended the decent but undistinguished Barnes University. Ingrid is uninspired, obsessed with simply getting her 250 pages done and marrying her (gross) white Asiaphile boyfriend. Then she discovers something shocking which upends her dissertation and her life path. I won't say anymore, but it is crazypants and fun, and it gives Chou a lot of room to play with white supremacy, misogyny, and the academic canon.
So why an enthusiastic 4 rather than a 5-star review. Well, the problem is Ingrid. She is crafted as so naïve she is impossible to believe. Though the story tells us she was popular in her all-white affluent high school (in part because she does whatever the Asian equivalent of shucking and jiving is called) and she is addicted to a reality tv show most of the time she is written like she just landed from a life lived in Antarctica. Despite having spent 12 years on a college campus she knows nothing of pop culture, speech codes, fights against institutionalized racism, or the basic rules of human engagement. I am all for exaggeration in the name of satire, but inconsistency kills the vibe. This was a much bigger issue in the first half of the book than in the second, but it is a significant problem. It is perhaps most discordant in the portion where Ingrid comes to see her fiancée more clearly. It is impossible a person would not have already known everything she "discovers" about her man. There are also some less troublesome missteps on academic politics -- trust me when I tell you that department chairs and program directors do not have a tenth of the power she imbues them with here.
Overall a wonderful book highly recommended.
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East Asians in the US, especially East Asian Women (the emasculation of Asian men in Western culture gets some time alongside the eroticization of and assumption of servility ascribed to Asian women ). The book is extremely smart, occasionally gut-punching, often hilarious while also being heartbreaking.The action is centered on an 8th year PhD Asian Studies student named Ingrid Chou. For those not familiar with the doctoral world, the 8th year is generally your defend or die year because it is the year most funding stops. Ingrid has been hustled into East Asian Studies by the white Department Chair Michael Bartholomew, largely because she is an Asian Female, but also because the school's lit program has been largely defunded and now there are few tenure track jobs for those who go down that path. Ingrid's money is contingent on researching an Asian American poet, known as the "Asian Robert Frost", which poet attended the decent but undistinguished Barnes University. Ingrid is uninspired, obsessed with simply getting her 250 pages done and marrying her (gross) white Asiaphile boyfriend. Then she discovers something shocking which upends her dissertation and her life path. I won't say anymore, but it is crazypants and fun, and it gives Chou a lot of room to play with white supremacy, misogyny, and the academic canon.
So why an enthusiastic 4 rather than a 5-star review. Well, the problem is Ingrid. She is crafted as so naïve she is impossible to believe. Though the story tells us she was popular in her all-white affluent high school (in part because she does whatever the Asian equivalent of shucking and jiving is called) and she is addicted to a reality tv show most of the time she is written like she just landed from a life lived in Antarctica. Despite having spent 12 years on a college campus she knows nothing of pop culture, speech codes, fights against institutionalized racism, or the basic rules of human engagement. I am all for exaggeration in the name of satire, but inconsistency kills the vibe. This was a much bigger issue in the first half of the book than in the second, but it is a significant problem. It is perhaps most discordant in the portion where Ingrid comes to see her fiancée more clearly. It is impossible a person would not have already known everything she "discovers" about her man. There are also some less troublesome missteps on academic politics -- trust me when I tell you that department chairs and program directors do not have a tenth of the power she imbues them with here.
Overall a wonderful book highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member alanna1122
I think this is going to be a hard review to write.
I admired a lot about this book. I liked the absurdness of it, I thought the author really did an interesting job of working through such a tough subject - a lot of it was very eye opening to me.
What I found hard was the frenetic tone that never
I am good with suspending my disbelief - and I know that was what was being asked of me at certain points in this book - but what got me is when I felt like there was plot progression that just didn't make sense - even in the jumbled world that this was all taking place in.
I was often left sort of shrugging about how we got from point A to point B. I know that isn't the point of this book - but for me it really interrupted the experience.
Still though, I appreciate this book for making me think about a lot of things I haven't thought about before.
I admired a lot about this book. I liked the absurdness of it, I thought the author really did an interesting job of working through such a tough subject - a lot of it was very eye opening to me.
What I found hard was the frenetic tone that never
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seemed to abate and the chaotic progression of the plot. I am good with suspending my disbelief - and I know that was what was being asked of me at certain points in this book - but what got me is when I felt like there was plot progression that just didn't make sense - even in the jumbled world that this was all taking place in.
I was often left sort of shrugging about how we got from point A to point B. I know that isn't the point of this book - but for me it really interrupted the experience.
Still though, I appreciate this book for making me think about a lot of things I haven't thought about before.
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
But the moment he shut the apartment door, Ingrid couldn't help but feel a drop of relief. Although self-pity could be magnified when others corroborated it, in truth it was best enjoyed alone. Now she could sink into her lowness, really swim around and bathe in it. She also had no intention of
Ingrid Yang has always worked hard. Currently, she's stalled out on her dissertation, mainly because the subject matter, the famous Chinese-American poet Xiao-Wen Chou, isn't a subject that interests her, but is the subject that puts her in the running for a tenure-track job after she graduates. An accidental discovery sends her on a wild investigation, helped by her best friend Eunice Kim, that leads her to a startling discovery about the poet and into the middle of campus politics.
By all accounts, Stephen Greene was plain. He had a plain, thin face and plain brown hair. He wore plain glasses and preferred plain clothes paired with plain, unpatterned socks. He had the face of an unremarkable passerby or, when he stood in shadowy lighting, of someone on the sex offender registry.
Ingrid is a wonderful character and this novel is a lot of fun, even if it is sometimes heavy-handed in its parody of campus politics, especially as the rotate around the subjects of race and gender. Ingrid has always kept her head down and worked hard and now that she's faced with the destruction of all her years of study, she's determined to do the right thing, if only she can figure out what that is. I do love campus novels and this one has reinforced my love of them.
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calling anyone.Ingrid Yang has always worked hard. Currently, she's stalled out on her dissertation, mainly because the subject matter, the famous Chinese-American poet Xiao-Wen Chou, isn't a subject that interests her, but is the subject that puts her in the running for a tenure-track job after she graduates. An accidental discovery sends her on a wild investigation, helped by her best friend Eunice Kim, that leads her to a startling discovery about the poet and into the middle of campus politics.
By all accounts, Stephen Greene was plain. He had a plain, thin face and plain brown hair. He wore plain glasses and preferred plain clothes paired with plain, unpatterned socks. He had the face of an unremarkable passerby or, when he stood in shadowy lighting, of someone on the sex offender registry.
Ingrid is a wonderful character and this novel is a lot of fun, even if it is sometimes heavy-handed in its parody of campus politics, especially as the rotate around the subjects of race and gender. Ingrid has always kept her head down and worked hard and now that she's faced with the destruction of all her years of study, she's determined to do the right thing, if only she can figure out what that is. I do love campus novels and this one has reinforced my love of them.
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
Ingrid is a Korean-American PhD student, writing (or, more accurately, procrastinating writing) her dissertation about the poetry of a famous Chinese-American poet. She's happily engaged to a white man, and her dissertation advisor tells her she has a promising career ahead of her. In her
This is a satire about academia, and it keeps getting more and more bizarre and contrived. Somehow I think the author didn't quite get the tone right: the tone was a little too serious for some of the extreme hijinks that happen: maybe if the prose had been more playful, the book would have felt more coherent.
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desperation to find something to say about her topic that no one else has said before, she ends up making a horrible discovery that upends the entire field of Chinese-American literature. Ingrid is painfully naive, but along the way, she learns a lot about racism and comes to understand how much racism has impacted her life. This is a satire about academia, and it keeps getting more and more bizarre and contrived. Somehow I think the author didn't quite get the tone right: the tone was a little too serious for some of the extreme hijinks that happen: maybe if the prose had been more playful, the book would have felt more coherent.
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Awards
Young Lions Fiction Award (Finalist — 2023)
Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award (Honor Book — 2023)
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
416 p.; 9.6 inches
ISBN
0593298357 / 9780593298350