Have I Never Grown Up? Books about immigrants and parental conflict

Since finishing The Gold Bug Variations last week, I fell back into the reading habit and cruised through Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.*

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a sweet, sometimes tear-jerking story of a Chinese boy "coming of age" in Seattle during World War II and the ramifications of his relationship with a Japanese American girl. It felt a

lot to me like reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: the history makes one cry and question, "How have I never thought about this before?" and the story, through lots of ups and downs, may be a bit too sweet, but I wouldn't change any of it. Reading it (in a day and a half) made me hungry for more reading and want to re-read The Chosen because of the father-son relationships and communication gaps..

If I didn't read them in a row, I wouldn't have thought Unaccustomed Earth had much to do with HotCoBaS. Unaccustomed Earth is a series of short stories with no plot pay-off. The stories concern Bengali immigrants in the United States** in all sorts of relationships: with their parents, their children, their lovers, their housemates and their siblings. Some are told through the point of view of the immigrant, some through the second generation children, some both. I was continually comparing it to The Joy Luck Club. The stories in UE are better stand-alone stories than those in Amy Tan's novel, but I found myself longing for some clever, Joy Luck style connection among the stories in UE.

However, I did read Unaccustomed Earth immediately after Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and couldn't help but notice the reoccurring theme: failing to communicate with one's parents is an essential part of, or at least a necessary consequence of, growing up. And I've pretty much always liked talking to my parents. Unlike the characters in both books, I have the advantage of speaking the same language as my parents and I am a product of the same basic culture, just 27 years and a thousand miles removed. Still, maybe we need a major disconnect in order for me to grow up. I don't think that my teenage years fully count. My parents certainly didn't understand me at thirteen, but then nobody understood me at thirteen. Somehow I knew, even then, that this tragedy of being terribly misunderstood wasn't unique to me and it certainly wasn't the fault of my parents. Later, at 22, the first time my heart was broken, nobody could understand that I knew my heart would someday mend but it hurt horridly now (and my wonderful ex wasn't even slimy about it, so I didn't have the release of being justifiably angry or feeling horribly deceived). That I didn't want to talk to my parents about it had nothing to do with them. In my thirties, I've spoken to them out genuine desire, rather than obligation, at least every week, usually far more often. Maybe I haven't grown up. But if strife is an requisite part of the maturation process, at this point I'm willing to call myself lucky and never grow up.

Anyway, as far as recommendations go, I know of many people who would enjoy both books. UA is probably better written than HotCoBaS and feels much more modern, but sweet old-fashioned HotCoBas is better plotted (even though the last page of UE was surprising enough that it knocked the wind out of me).

Both of these books are easier to recommend (and read) than The Gold Bug Variations, but they leave me much less confused about my opinion. I know many of my readers will enjoy these books (and I'm not so sure about TGBV), but I want people to read TGBV so we can discuss it.

*Thanks to my mom for giving me these books. Another potential example of not being a grown up: I very rarely actually pick out my own books. Books come to me and I read them.

**Lahiri is the author of The Namesake, a book I must read if only to see what I think it is about. My mother loved the book. I saw the movie. We didn't think they were about the same thing, which is not unusual for comparing a book with a movie, but mom didn't even know why I was asking about Nikolai Gogol (the namesake, a major part of the movie).