Harare Review of Books

1056 pages.

First published in May 2022.

Genre: Anthology.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the Library of America for this ARC.

This has been my very thorough introduction to Maxine Hong Kingston’s work, and, at 1,000+ pages, it’s taken me months to read. I decided to co-read it with Julia H. Lee’s Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston, which is very helpful, and which I plan to finish reading today.

Maxine Hong Kingston is an American author, the descendant of Chinese immigrants. The LOA anthology includes The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, Hawai’i One Summer, and other writings, including essays and reviews—notably, for me, Kingston’s important essay, Cultural Mis-readings by American Reviewers. That essay is critical of perceptions and receptions of her work that attempted to limit her perspective to her Chinese-ness (which she resented, being born in Stockton, California), or to attempting to make her work the definitive single story of Chinese Americans (again, inaccurate).

Kingston’s work is engrossing, and I found her style entertaining. There has been some debate—with little clarification from the author herself—about whether books like The Woman Warrior and China Men are fiction, or non-fiction. Events in those books appear to be a mix of history, memoir, fiction, myth and legend, and tongue-in-cheek speculation—all of which delighted me. I think if one lets go of the need to stick a genre label on the work, as the author appears to prefer, it becomes possible to enjoy the stories on their own terms—which I did.

I will spend some time digesting all I learnt about writing and perspective from Kingston’s work and worldview. I recommend her work, both the “novels” and her essays, which clarify her perspective a little more. I also recommend the book I mentioned above to bring context to Kingston’s work. Kingston’s Wikipedia page is also useful for information about her life and writing.

My particular recommendations from this anthology in order of preference:

• The Cultural Mis-readings essay
• China Men
• The Woman Warrior

What didn’t work for me:

• Tripmaster Monkey, mainly because I enjoyed neither the style, nor the protagonist.

Also check out this (2001?) essay by Judy Huang on Frank Chin’s criticism of Kingston’s work, on the Dartmouth website.

My rating of the anthology: 9/10.