Product Description

"Sparkling--a gently satiric look at the American Dream and its fallout on those who pursue it."--The New York Times

With dazzling wit and compassion, Gish Jen--author of the highly acclaimed novels Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land--looks at ambition and compromise at century's end and finds that much of the action is as familiar--and as strange--as the things we know to be most deeply true about ourselves.

The stories in Who's Irish? show us the children of immigrants looking wonderingly at their parents' efforts to assimilate, while the older generation asks how so much selfless hard work on their part can have yielded them offspring who'd sooner drop out of life than succeed at it.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #386729 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-13
• Released on: 2000-06-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375705922
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Nobody writes about the immigrant experience like Gish Jen. What sets her apart from other ethnic writers is the wide-angle lens she turns not only on her own Chinese American ethnic group, but on Jewish Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, and just about any other hyphenate you'd care to name. Though her tales are filtered through an Asian experience, they are, at heart, the quintessential American story of immigration, assimilation, and occasional tensions with other ethnic communities. The title story, for example, is a neat variation on a time-worn theme: mothers and daughters. The narrator is an elderly Chinese woman whose thoroughly assimilated daughter, Natalie, has married into an Irish American family. Natalie is successful; her husband, John, is not. Natalie's mother comments early on:

I always thought Irish people are like Chinese people, work so hard on the railroad, but now I know why the Chinese beat the Irish. Of course, not all Irish are like the Shea family, of course not. My daughter tell me I should not say Irish this, Irish that.

The narrator has other thoughts on the Irish question as well, including the connection between national diet and world view: "Plain boiled food, plain boiled thinking," she says of John, then adds that "because I grew up with black bean sauce and hoisin sauce and garlic sauce, I always feel something is missing when my son-in-law talk." But it soon becomes apparent that the problems between the narrator and her daughter's family are less cultural than generational, and in the end the mother forms a surprising alliance.

Jen comes at the question of identity from another angle in "Duncan in China," in which a second-generation Chinese American man returns to Mainland China to teach English. Here she manages to delicately suggest the enormity of the differences between the very American Duncan and his Chinese students, coworkers, and relatives. And in "Birthmates" she places her computer programmer protagonist, Art Woo, in close proximity to the low-income, mostly black residents of a welfare hotel that he's accidentally checked into. Class, race, gender, and job security all figure into this brilliant, subtle story that looks at the dark side of the American dream and finds that failure comes in all colors. These eight stories are sharply written, filled with humor, pathos, and more than a few surprising twists and turns. Quite simply, Who's Irish? is a delight. --Alix Wilber

From Publishers Weekly
The Chinese-American author (Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land) is a known quantity by now, though her sometimes uproarious but just as often compassionate tales of culture clash always manage to find some new and surprising angles from which to ambush the reader. There are two novella-length tales in this breezy, assured collection: Duncan in China tells of a young man, a dropout at home, who achieves a certain bizarre status on a prolonged visit to contemporary China, and of the perplexing choices he has to make when all his usual assumptions are turned on their heads. House, House, Home is the account of Pammies two marriages, to wry, eccentric Scandinavian Sven and, later, to massively laid-back Carver from Hawaii, and the sorts of space these very different men give her to move in. As always with Jen, a multitude of details, domestic and behavioral, are acutely observed, and the impact, in barely 80 pages, is that of a much longer work. The title story is a delightfully rueful account of a Chinese grandmother trying to come to terms with her spoiled Irish grandchild, Birthmates is a cunningly woven mixture of farce and pathos about a born loser looking for a job at a convention and In the American Society portrays the mixed dignity and foolishness of a traditional Chinese man trying, and failing, to adapt to our odd mores.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
YA-As in her novels, Jen provides a clear, compelling voice and presents characters who are both realistic and quirky. Multicultural settings, plot lines, and social issues figure into most of these short stories but are well integrated so there is no sense of this being a collection "about" multiculturalism. Some selections feature characters from the author's longer fiction, albeit at different points and in different situations from those in which they appeared earlier. The title story provides a wonderfully dynamic portrait of an older Chinese-American woman who must deal with her granddaughter's biracial identity and her own evolving warmth toward her daughter's mother-in-law. Each of the stories stands independently but it is easy to move from one to the next, without a disappointment in the lot. This is a great way to introduce readers to Jen, and her fans will be happy to have these new stories, each of which is a tiny window on a busy world.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

---

Customer Reviews

The definitive East-coast Asian-American voice
I am a working mom with little time to read fiction. But the need exists. Amy Tam never did it for me. Maxine Kingston Wong was too ethereal. Finally, I found an Asian American writer with an East Coast sensibility! Gish Jen's new book of short stories is a delight. There are treasures in this volume. For me, she is the most down-to-earth and funny(!) Asian American woman writing today. "House, House, Home" is one of the best short stories that I have ready anywhere, anytime. The short story format (some are more polished than others, but all are worth the time) makes for good summer reading.

Excellent read
Some of these stories were outstanding, all were good. The title story was great. This book is an excellent commentary on American society, and the experience of being an immigrant. This collection, like many other short story collections explores the theme of "East meets West," for lack of a more politically correct term. It explores some valuable questions in todays society. Jen's writing style is also excellent, and much improved since "Mona in the Promised Land."

A definite improvement from Mona in the Promised Land
I may have preferred this anthology of short stories to her last work (Mona in the Promised Land) because I tend to lean in that literary direction but I also noticed an improvement of Jen's writing style. Where as in the last novel I felt as if she wandered in certain sections, in each of her stories in Who's Irish? she seemed both eloquent but more straight to the point. Like Amy Tan, Jen is an Chinese American writer that is talented enough to relate her ideas and themes to the reader without him or her having to be of the same ethnic background. She did this exceedingly well in the short story House, House, Home with the protagonist Pammie.