The Love Wife

What is good about this book is that it undercuts the cliche of the always wise Chinese eespecially elders. The old mother is a nightmare, controlling her son from beyond the grave. The immigrant relative, Lanlan, plays a game of seducing the daughters of the family with 'Chinese wisdom' while seduc......more

Carnegie Wong is a first generation Chinese-American, with Blondie (his white wife, so nicknamed by his mother); two adopted daughters, one Chinese, one of unknown Asian descent; and baby Bailey, his biological child, who defies genetics and looks not at all Asian. His mother, Mama Wong, is the Asia......more

Except for some clunky plotting involving Lan's story near the end, this is overall Jen's best novel (and her others are very good!). Ignore lots of the reviews--the main characters are superbly developed and realistically conflicted, not types, and the book's formal experimentation with the narrati......more

I adored this funny, insightful and very forthright novel about a Chinese-American man married to a white woman; their adopted and biological children; the shadow of the man's ambitious, no-nonsense and hypercritical mother; and what happens when a native Chinese woman comes to live with them. It ha......more