The Dim Sum of All Things
Wong Keltner's spunky novel about a third-generation Chinese-American in San Francisco delivers a left hook to knee-jerk political correctness and offers a comic, honest take on what it feels like to be part of two cultures. Lindsey Owyang is a modern 20-something, underemployed as a receptionist at Vegan Warrior magazine (she's a "closet meat-eater"), who unexpectedly finds herself falling "in like" with Michael Cartier, the magazine's white travel editor. But dating's tough when you live at home with a traditional Chinese grandmother and even harder when that grandmother is constantly trying to set you up with the children of her mah-jongg partners. Meanwhile, Lindsay's aunt gets colored contacts ("  'Don't you think I look at least half-white anyway?' "); a white friend says that Asian girls are stealing all the cute frat boys; and creepy "Hoarders of All Things Asian" accost her on the bus. Lindsey gets a chance to connect with her roots when she finds out that she's expected to accompany her grandmother to China to visit long-lost relatives. Here Lindsey finally gains a grounded sense of her personal and cultural past, while at the same time realizing that as an ABC (American-born Chinese), "every experience, even the unpleasant ones, had helped to slowly build her character, creating a one-of-a-kind Chinese American named Lindsey Owyang." Wong Keltner is unabashedly sassy and biting in her take on race and love, and the result is both refreshing and smart.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.