The acclaimed, award-winning author of The Resisters takes measure
of the fifty years since the opening of China and its unexpected effects
on the lives of ordinary people. It is a unique book that only Jen could
write--a story collection accruing the power of a novel as it
proceeds--a work that Cynthia Ozick has called "an art beyond art. It is
life itself."
Beginning with a cheery letter penned by a Chinese girl in heaven to
"poor Mr. Nixon" in hell, Gish Jen embarks on a fictional journey
through U.S.-China relations, capturing the excitement of a world on the
brink of tectonic change.
Opal Chen reunites with her Chinese sisters after forty years; newly
cosmopolitan Lulu Koo wonders why Americans "like to walk around in the
woods with the mosquitoes"; Hong Kong parents go to extreme lengths to
reestablish contact with their "number-one daughter" in New York; and
Betty Koo, brought up on "no politics, just make money," finds she must
reassess her mother's philosophy.
With their profound compassion and equally profound humor, these eleven
linked stories trace the intimate ways in which humans make and are made
by history, capturing an extraordinary era in an extraordinary way.
Delightful, provocative, and powerful, Thank You, Mr. Nixon furnishes
yet more proof of Gish Jen's eminent place among American storytellers.
