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Stories
by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Book Reviewed by:From the critically-acclaimed author of Disorientation, a multi-genre story collection that explores the limits and possibilities of storytelling.
A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. And in "Casualties of Art," a writer's affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others.
In these six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of truth in storytelling. With razor-sharp precision and psychological acuity, she peels back the tales we tell ourselves to peer beneath them: at our treacherous desires, our self-deceptions and our capacity for cruelty, both to ourselves and each other. Expansive and provocative, Where Are You Really From is a visionary achievement.
Where Are You Really From covers the messiness of desire and the search for identity, companionship, and family—along with the stories we tell ourselves. Chou's narratives stand out due to her remarkable creativity. She weaves in deceptive situations not just for her characters but also for the reader, prompting us to think deeply about what's real and what's imagined. This makes the stories both engaging and unpredictable, leaving you eager to turn page after page to see where they'll go next. I love how they explore the multiple layers within a person—particularly how even the most seemingly kind and innocent individuals can harbor the capacity for cruelty. This challenges our assumptions about who is capable of what, especially in situations of retaliation, where characters lash out against those who have upset or harmed them...continued
Full Review
(1021 words)
(Reviewed by Letitia Asare).
Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
It's the clarity of the voice that gets me here—Chou's worlds are strange and new and absurd, but the prose is utterly convincing and I found myself happily immersed in each new story's investigation. Thoroughly enjoyable! Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love and Tampa
Delicious, confessional, shocking, and poignant—this collection is like getting to hear every conversation at the world's most interesting dinner party. Chou crafts unexpected twists at the intersections of identity, sexuality, and obsession to make each story a wholly new surprise. It's impossible to put this masterful book down.
In Elaine Hsieh Chou's short story collection Where Are You Really From, "Mail Order Love" examines certain realities of American "green card marriages" and "mail-order" brides (women seeking long-distance romantic connection and marriage through a service, typically to men from other countries), despite some very fictionalized elements.
Getting a green card through marriage, or a marriage-based green card, allows a spouse of a US citizen or permanent resident to live and work in the US. It's a common path to citizenship. After approval for a marriage-based green card, the spouse becomes a permanent resident and can apply for citizenship following three years of marriage. Marrying solely for a green card is considered a crime and ...
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