perhaps superficial, ending, Bess dubs the grand-
mother a “permanent resident” of her house and
an “honorary Irish” for her companionship while
watching television.
“In the American Society,” Jen’s earliest story
about the Chang family, eventually becomes
the subject of her first novel, TYPICAL AMERICAN
(1991), and her second novel, MONA IN THE PROM-
ISED LAND (1996). “The Water Faucet Vision,”
which appeared in Best American Short Stories
(1988) continues to develop the Chang family’s
story from the perspective of the eldest daugh-
ter, Callie. “Birthmates,” chosen by John Updike
for Best American Short Stories of the Century, is a
third-person, humorous narrative about Art Woo,
a divorced, paranoid computer salesman who
finds himself being cared for by a young black
woman after he is knocked unconscious in a ran-
dom attack. “Duncan in China,” a novella-length
story, follows a Chinese-American man who
travels to China in hopes of finding “the China
of ineffable nobility and refinement.” In the end,
he finds himself disenchanted with his family, the
politics, and culture. “Just Wait” is an omniscient
narrative told through the perspective of Addie
Lee, a pregnant Chinese-American woman whose
impending birthing brings together her brothers
and her fickle, estranged mother. In “Just Wait,”
Jen focuses on character development and the
subtle play of family dynamics against cultural
conflict. “Chin,” the shortest and most tragic tale
within the collection, depicts the disintegration of
the Chin family in Yonkers, New York. Ma Chin
eventually rescues herself and her daughter from
the abusive husband, packs a bag, and leaves the
house without anywhere for them to go. No one
in the neighborhood rushes to rescue them even
as they watch the pair stranded in the street. The
collection of stories ends with “House, House,
Home,” another novella-length story narrated by
an Asian student who divorces her very Western
and eccentric husband, Sven, and begins a rela-
tionship with a Hawaiian man who helps her un-
derstand “how she had been wifed, how she had
been fetishized, how she had been viewed as Ori-
entalia” by her ex-husband.
Jen’s short-story collection has garnered high
praise for her ability to use short fiction as a sort of
trial run for her longer works. Jen also frequently
discusses the freedom and relaxation her stories
offer her from the rigorous practice of novel writ-
ing. Rachel Lee writes that Jen focuses in her short
fiction on the sense of home by depicting “the un-
settling of home implied not only in literal leave-
takings of members from households but also in
reconfigurations of the family structure following
intercultural pressures” (14).Bibliography
Jen, Gish. Who’s Irish? 1999. New York: Vintage
Books, 2000.
Lee, Rachel. “Who’s Chinese?” Women’s Review of
Books 19, no. 5 (2002): 13–14.
Perry, Rachel. Review of Who’s Irish? by Gish Jen, Mid-
American Review 20, nos. 1/2 (2000): 253–256.
Amy Lillian ManningWild Meat and the Bully Burgers
Lois-Ann Yamanaka (1961)
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, LOIS-ANN YA-
MANAKA’s first novel, introduces three themes the
author returns to in her later novels: legitimacy of
self-definition, ethnic authenticity, and the diffi-
culty of language acquisition.
Set in mid-1970s Hilo, Hawaii, the novel por-
trays the daily life of a working-class Asian-Ameri-
can family through the narration of daughter
Lovey Nariyoshi. As Lovey comes of age, she tells
us about her desire to be an all-American girl who
speaks perfect English and looks like a Barbie doll.
As a child, she wanted to be like Shirley Temple
with her “perfect Blond ringlets and pink cheeks
and pout lips” (3). As an adolescent, she envies the
American beauty and sexuality in the movies. She
also wants to be like the popular Asian-American
girls at school who are able to fit in with main-
stream, white American culture much more readily
than Lovey can. While they shop at all the fashion-
able stores, live in nicer houses, and eat American
food bought at the grocery store, Lovey must wear314 Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers