Crossings

Crossings

1986 • 222 pages

I stumbled upon Crossings by Chuang Hua because it was referred to by Ruth Reichl as an important food novel. Not a food book per se, but considered to be the first modernist Chinese American novel and what an extraordinary work of writing. Hau only penned this one book (1968) and then retreated from society.

The writing is very unconventional in its use of (or often lack thereof) punctuation and paragraph structure. During a single paragraph she may take you from the present to the past and even into fantasy. You have to stay on your toes!

“The past continues to speak to us. But this is no longer a simple, factual “past,” since our relation to it, like the child's relation to the mother, is always-already “after the break.” It is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth. (p224)”

This short book is worth a read, if not two; a fascinating, haunting, erotic and mouth watering journey for the character Jane, middle daughter of an upperclass Chinese-American family in the mid 20th century.

June 11, 2014Report this review