BBC -- Review of Bone

Let me start by saying that I simply could not get into this book. In theory, Bone is exactly the type of novel I enjoy reading as it's a story about the necessity of story for our very survival, the need for story to reveal the truth behind one's circumstances, and how story helps us understand our identity, as individuals and as members of families, cultures, and communities. The story of the Leong family -- its tragedies, its joys, and most imporantly, its secrets -- is an intimate portrayal of life in San Francisco's Chinatown as told by first-person narrator Leila. And it is a story that the tour books and history books don't tell.

The narrator's urgency in understanding her heritage, both in the past and in the present, is the heart of this story; the narrator's inability to understand who she is as a Chinese-American woman, a woman torn between her traditional Chinese heritage and the modern "American" world she lives in, drives the story forward, Chinatown representing the two worlds coming together. And it is primarily the secrets of the family -- the unexplainable suicide of middle daughter, Ona; the story behind the disappearance of the narrator's biological father; the true lives of the three daughters in contrast with the images they present to their parents; the failure to return Grandfather Leung's bones to China -- that create the tension in the story. The characters' refusal to confront these issues head on only perpetuates this tension; it seems crucial for Leila to face this tension through her storytelling. For her entire life, Leila has only received fragments of her life's story, and it seems vital for her to piece her story together, bit by bit, through whatever means she can. Only through story can Leila face who she is and perhaps create a stronger, more authentic sense of self.

Okay, I get all of that in theory. And I'm not sure why I didn't connect with this novel. I admired the relationships in the story, felt the pain as the family struggled with dealing with tragedy. The prose was admirable, poetic, smooth, real...especially for a first novel. As narrator, Leila tells her story with brutal honesty; she doesn't sugarcoat herself or her experiences. But the story felt choppy to me; I got lost in when things were taking place (is Leila married yet? is Ona dead yet?) and kept having to flip back to previous pages to try and piece it all together. And at the same time, things felt rushed via too much exposition as opposed to carefully drawn-out scenes; so much took place in under 200 pages, I wondered why the author didn't write 400 pages instead. Sure, it's a good book, no denying that, but if someone wants to read a story about Chinese-American experiences, I'm going to suggest The Woman Warrior. And if someone wants a story about the damaging impact of secrets on a family's survival, I'm handing them Beloved.

(Though perhaps that's an unfair expectation for any author -- I mean, Maxine Hong Kingston and especially Toni Morrison are about as good as it gets!)