“Rock, Paper, Scissors,” Naja Marie Aidt
About a year and a half ago, I read a collection of Aidt’s short stories (Baboon), which had compelling characters in stories that were empathetic and easy to read. Rock, Paper, Scissors was no different. The main character’s criminal father dies in jail and leaves his children nothing but a mess, and while fixing his toaster, the main character discovers a substantial sum of money hidden in it. This discovery changes his life, which eventually devolves into one of paranoia, jealousy and fear. The whole novel, one is waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it finally does, the outcome will leave the reader with their jaw dropped.
“Wild Swans,” Jung Chang
This book was surprising in so many ways. I have read other Chinese mother-daughter narratives, but they were always set in the U.S. and focused on the immigrant perspective. This tome of a book (800 pages!) is basically the history of modern day China through the eyes of three women: the author’s grandmother, once a concubine in the old China; her Communist mother, who joined the party in her teens; and through her own. All three stories are equally interesting and through them I learned more about China from one book than I had thought possible. Jung’s own story explains much about China during the years of Mao, the damage he did to so many, and how her family survived, not unscathed, but stronger than before.