The Sorrows of Others

Starred review from March 13, 2023
Zhang debuts with a remarkable collection that explores the intricacies of Chinese American families. In “Any Good Wife,” a woman makes an effort to assimilate in Tucson, Ariz., in the months after emigrating from China. She gets a perm, listens to rock music, and makes a Jell-O salad for her confused husband (“ ‘The food is trapped?’ he’d asked, wondering if this was a joke or a game. ‘How do I get to it?’ ”). In “Knowing,” a Texas family welcomes an old friend from China who survived the Cultural Revolution, prompting the child narrator to ask what it was like. Her mother, maintaining a strong connection to the past, replies, “You shouldn’t talk of death like it’s the easiest thing in the world.” With methodical pacing and precise details, Zhang locates the reasons why the narrator’s mother often shuts her out. The art student narrator of “The Subject” gains perspective on the quirky behavior of her roommate, an elderly Chinese woman who insists on picking up trash on their street in the dead of winter. The narrator also possesses a fascinating self-awareness, as when she reflects on her reasons to live frugally, which gives her an air of authenticity among her friends (“The hipsters would nod and drink their beers, smug in the idea that there was a real one among us”). Zhang’s crystalline stories ring with moments of surprising truth about her characters’ lives. This will stay with readers. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary.

Starred review from April 15, 2023
Writers with virtually perfect debuts are certainly rare; Zhang joins that short list with a magnificent ten-story collection filled with lost souls aching for connection on both sides of the world. Xi'an is home for many of her characters, those who stayed in that Chinese city and those who left, most often for Texan destinations. In the titular tale, a daughter finds her long-widowed father a wife via a dating app. "Silence" reveals three generations of broken bonds between partners and parents; "Compromise" examines a Texas family abandoned 18 years ago by a philandering husband who returns home to die. The relationship between a single father and his "already sick of the world" daughter frays in "One Day." Marriage for an immigrant couple is made tolerable by casseroles in "Any Good Wife." A seemingly inseparable friendship between two college besties abruptly ruptures in "Julia." Two of the strongest stories feature brilliantly unexpected endings. In the superb opener, "The Subject," a Manhattan college student moves to a Flushing sublet and makes her septuagenarian Chinese immigrant roommate the subject of her senior thesis. In "Knowing," the protagonist, disgruntled as a girl at having to call an elder stranger Yeye (grandfather), finally learns decades later why her mother insisted on that moniker. Zhang's prodigious performance awaits lucky audiences.

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