In Lives of the Family: Stories of Fate and Circumstance, the award-winning non-fiction author Denise Chong tells the story of Chinese immigrants and their adjustment to life in Canada during a time when their opportunities were limited.
Chong’s first work in the area of family history focused on her own. The Concubine’s Children: Portrait of a Family Divided, which became a bestseller, explored the life of Mayying, her fiery maternal grandmother, whose life was marked by betrayal, gambling, alcohol- ism and sexual misadventure. This time around, through interviews, letters and archives, Chong expands the scope and recounts the small struggles for dignity, the good life and sense of belonging of several families of Chinese immigrants in various parts of Canada.
Her protagonists, Chong shows, are at times left with little opportunity for any agency. But despite their confinement, they do strive. And many of their successes arise because...
J.J. Lee is the author of the 2011 memoir The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son and a Suit. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction, the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize and the 2012 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize.
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