In any case, there are now so many mainland Chinese in North America that you can hear all this stuff from your colleague in the next office if you feel inclined. What's going on is the search for the next Angela's Ashes .
Publishers are an unimaginative lot.
If you enjoy memoirs about hardscrabble childhoods, better set aside some serious reading time. I cannot say I think so. Not that it is a bad book in the sense of being malicious, or deliberately dishonest. It is just not very interesting. Nor is there much sign that Chen understands the great events that shaped his life.