Joan Is Okay

Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.

Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.

Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.

ISBN: 0525654836

Год издания: 2022

Язык: Английский

ISAIAS ROGEL, THE A.V. CLUB

"Wang writes Joan's exterior as cool and removed, and much of the novel's wry humor comes from her seemingly muted emotions ... Joan resists sentimentalizing the death of her father and her fractured relationship with her family. And Wang masterfully manages this emotional landscape on the page. Moments of vulnerability are crowded by Joan's monologues on sitcoms, the medical field, the suburbs, and life support machines ... On the surface, these quick shifts from thoughtful reflection to seemingly arbitrary dialogue suggest Joan uses deflection to keep from grieving."