Books by Weike Wang
I read Wang's third novel, Rental House, reread Chemistry, and added my earlier review of Joan Is Okay. I gave them all five stars, as I loved the way the books are written and the stories told in an often whimsical style .
The books, listed in order of publication, seem to advance the progress of the immigrant women from one book to the other.
The Chinese family in juxtaposition with Western culture, as well as family dynamics in general and how these affect children, their careers and their marriage choices.
The narrator of Chemistry doesn't identify herself by name. We know she struggles to enjoy her job as a chemist the way her boyfriend, Eric, does. He works in the same lab in New York and they live together. Though Eric proposes time and time again to her, she refuses to give an answer, until he has to leave for a university post in Ohio.
The narrator muses about life, chemistry in everyday life, and gives us insights into her parents' marriage, their style of parenting, their high expectations of her, and how these affect her attitude to marriage, work, and love.
The ending in relation to Eric is ambiguous, and leads the reader to only hope for the best.
Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang
A seemingly stereotypical Chinese woman doctor in New York, hard-working Joan, lives in a high rise apartment bare of furnishings and creature comforts, in stark contrast with her older brother, a successful businessman who lives the American dream with his family in a mansion in the suburbs. Joan was born in America while her brother came to America as a young boy, and their lifestyles and attitudes are polar opposites.
But in her own eyes, Joan is okay. She likes the sparse, limited life she leads and does not miss the luxuries that her salary in America could afford her. . An intimate look at the personality that is Joan, who resists change from her own comfortable lifestyle.
Written with humor and candor, and a look at two styles of immigrant lives.
Keru and Nate seem to be opposites, yet they meet at an Ivy League college and land up getting married. Keru's well educated immigrant Chinese family is the opposite of Nate's rural American working class family, and the couple fit each other more than they fit into their own families.
The family dynamics play out in a shared family vacation at a rental house, with both sides spending time with each other, and then later visiting Keru and Nate at their home. The imbalance of their situation and their families leads Keru to take the lead in keeping everyone together. She felt she had to be always present to "right the course" and handle their families together.
"They would take better care of each other and their dog. The unit had to be protected and she would protect them. They were codependent, she and Nate. Without her, he lost grounding, but without him, she could be relentless and too focused."
An amazing solution to a situation full of contradictions and different life styles and expectations from the families of both sides.
