| Summary: | I was dying to see Mother suffer at the sight of my corpse, announces the narrator of this powerful and disquieting novel, which has won acclaim in Canada and France. All her life, Yan-Zi's mother has dominated her, correcting her, urging her to adopt bourgeois mores, and reminding her that her very life is a debt owed to others. So Yan-Zi decides to commit suicide in order to shake off the yoke of her mother's love. In the moments after death, she recounts her last days with a cool, even cruel detachment that recalls Camus's The Stranger, In Ingratitude. Ying Chen unearths the violence buried within our family lives; strong, direct, and transparent, her writing identifies universal truths about the relationships between children and their parents.
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