“China Girl: And Other Stories” by Ho Lin

China Girl: And Other Stories Ho Lin “She hates the David Bowie song…How could anyone think of that as a beautiful Chinese girl?” So thinks May Lee, the exotic dancer whose story is told in the eponymous opening story of the collection “China Girl,” whose characters move, often ambiguously, between East and West, belonging to […]

“The Opposite of Fate” by Amy Tan

Why is Amy Tan’s writing so great? Tan is one of my very favorite contemporary writers, and so this was a question I kept posing to myself as I read this collection of autobiographical essays on topics varying from Tan’s childhood to the time she was almost swept away in a flash flood while vacationing […]

“The Valley of Amazement” by Amy Tan

Amy Tan’s latest offering is both similar to her previous books, and yet startlingly different. While it possesses the richness of description and the multi-generational depth and breadth we’ve come to associate with Tan, prudish readers may be shocked by the sexual details of the main character’s experiences, and the tone is somehow different from […]