A sensitively written portrayal of a Chinese American family with many secrets and a serious failure to communicate. Ling Tang has been widowed for nearly a year, but can’t get past the pain of a brittle marriage and two adult children who can’t communicate with her, each other, or their significant others. The story is told from the varying perspectives of Ling and her children Emily and Michael, and the rawness of their damaged lives is tangible and sometimes hard to take, but she offers […]
Family secrets and mid-life crisis
This book, by the author of Sarah’s Key, also takes place in Paris and also has two time lines—the present and the past—but that’s where the similiarities between the two books end. A Secret Kept is the story of a shattered French family, told from the standpoint of the adult son Antoine, who is going through a mid-life crisis, looking back at his past and trying to make sense of it. He is an apparently successful architect who has lost his creative thirst; he has […]
Life Imitates Art
This graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, perhaps knowns to some as the creator of the Bechdel test, to others as the creator of the comic Dykes to Watch Out For, has won critical acclaim and is currently featured as The Atlantic’s 1book140 selection for LGBTQ month. I found to to be a truly engaging read both for its art and for its written content. The art is done in black, white and blue tones. Bechdel mixes up her own comic illustrations of her family with […]