Go Home!

January 29, 2018
In the introduction, editor Buchanan points to the xenophobic political rhetoric of recent years as motivation for this anthology of Asian-American writers who “complicate and expand the idea of home.” Contributors include Alexander Chee, Kimiko Hahn, Chang-Rae Lee, Wo Chan, and Muhammad Amirul bin Muhamad. The fiction writers and poets largely do better with the prompt than the nonfiction writers, whose work can be either didactic or sentimental. Standouts include Alice Sola Kim’s story “Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying,” about three Korean adoptee girls who summon a mother through a spell, and Chaya Babu’s “Cul-de-Sac,” a sprawling essay that expertly weaves together landscape, class, and race to explain the context for the author’s girlhood. Marilyn Chin’s poem “For Mitsuye Yamada on Her 90th Birthday,” is an ecstatic romp through decades of cultural and political history, including lines like “I binged on duck noodles on Clement Street after sucking down a bong/ Wrote ten-thousand letters for Amnesty International high on shrooms.” This powerful collection will push readers to do as Buchanan recommends in her introduction: to seek out the “ever-increasing ways in which we can be homed and un-homed.”

March 1, 2018

Rising like a lotus flower from the muck, this beautiful work was inspired by an ugly episode. Buchanan (Harmless Like You) and a friend were in New York when a man shouted at them to "Go Home!" This caused Buchanan, who has lived in multiple countries and has both Asian and European ancestors, to contemplate the meaning of home and thus motivated this collection of 31 poems and short stories by 24 authors. Entries include both fictional and autobiographical works, which offer interpretations of home and belonging from the perspective of the Asian diaspora. A wide variety of experiences are represented: a young Singaporean woman exiled in London; an Indian American daughter growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in New York; a Nepali mother's life in Singapore; a Chinese soldier in Taiwan in the years following the Chinese Civil War; and many more. VERDICT A touching and riveting work perfectly suited to this era of tension between globalization and nativism. Highly recommended for those interested in immigrant experiences, creative writing, or works that address feelings of alienation.--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2018
The phrase, go home, encompasses polarizing intentions. It's a reference to one's safest place but can also be a hurled threat of exclusion. That polarity illuminates these 31 stories, essays, and poems by writers of diasporic Asian origin, compiled by self-described Japanese-Chinese-Scottish-English-American novelist Buchanan (Harmless Like You, 2017). Ranging from contemporary to a quarter-century old, the pieces are introduced by MacArthur fellow Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, who writes of how he found a home in language and storytelling. As with many collections, this one is uneven, although there are numerous standouts, including Mohja Kahf's humorously poignant, My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom of Sears; Fariha Roisin's vindicating, Meet a Muslim; Mia Alvar's love-story-of-sorts, Esmerelda; Jason Koo's father-son road trip, Bon Chul Koo and the Hall of Fame; Marilyn Chin's rallying For Mitsuye Yamada on Her 90th Birthday; and Chang-rae Lee's elegiac The Faintest Echo of Our Language. Readers, no matter their background, will find much to enjoy and contemplate here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)