Beautiful Country

Unputdownable once you get past the difficult start. Wang is a genuinely gifted writer, her words flow with a grace that remind me of Fred Astaire's dancing: the truly, truly talented make their art look effortless and sweep you along in their arms. I felt transported.

Difficult first: for the first forty pages, how I longed for a glossary! Wang introduces terms and names once, and expects you to keep up. Expect a lot of flipping-back until your brain catches up; and don't be discouraged, because it gets so worth it, so beautiful. Difficult also in content: the undocumented immigrant's appalling life of hunger, need, fear, and loneliness; the horrific sweatshop jobs; the bullying and abuse on the streets. And difficult in personal experience: the trauma of growing up with self-absorbed needy parents. Wang herself writes with exquisite self-awareness and I found myself certain, near the end, that she could only be writing this after years of therapy. (Yep: she thanks two therapists in her final Acknowledgments).

Oh so worth it, though, for the vividness of Wang's worlds, the China she left behind and the New York City she has to learn. Her observations feel a little too crisp to be believable as the recollections of a seven-to-nine-year-old, but I really can't be sure: even if a little of it is artistic license, the bulk of it feels real because Wang clearly learned at a very early age to be a caretaker, to listen and observe. A writer can't fake that kind of awareness. And again, her writing is just wonderful: Hardship is dimly lit, and its darkness shielded us. Swoon.