Jenny Zhang

Sour Heart – a book that we all knew was going to be different and exciting, given the advance praise by Lena Dunham and Miranda July. I was itching to get my hands on it and pretty much started reading once I’d bought it. I don’t know what I was expecting in retrospect; perhaps to be blown away by each story? Well, I was but in ways that I wasn’t expecting. Sour Heart is compulsive, greedy reading that will shock and fascinate as you read about the children of Chinese immigrants show more living on the edge of the poverty line.

This is a short story collection, but the seven stories are interlinked. You will meet characters later on that were in the background of earlier stories and hear if they did manage to rise above poverty. You don’t even have to read them in order, but I think it helps. The stories become more graphic as you delve towards the middle with a sense of hope towards the end. One thing you will notice as you start to read is Zhang’s fondness for run on sentences. The opening sentence for ‘We Love You Crispina’ is a good sized paragraph with liberal use of commas. Normally, this would really annoy me as I tend to lose track of all the thoughts contained in the one sentence but Zhang makes it work. It helps that each section of the sentence sort-of links to the previous part and it sounds quite natural in the first person. I found it easy to look over this as I continued reading, but it might be worth checking out the first couple of pages to determine if the book is right for you.

Zhang really gets into the minds of her characters with the flow and conversational style of writing. Her characters certainly keep no secrets from the reader! Most of the narrators are fairly young children (about 10 or 11) and wow, they have the kind of sledging, insulting vocabulary that would put most adults to share! These kids are wild, swearing and sexually exploring where others are playing with Barbies and PlayStations. They are hardened to so much – sharing a room with the rest of their families or multiple families, seeing other kids steal and do drugs and yet they are still outsiders. Each child is hyperaware of their status – they don’t look the same and their parents aren’t the same as other American kids. They watch the American dream on TV but they are already cynical that it won’t be on offer for them. It’s sad, but the stories don’t get hung up on that. Each kid is a fighter, determined to stake out their mark in any dubious way they can. They can’t be sweet, sour is the only way to make it in this country. But they know that their parents love them and the family bond is strong, even when desperation and poverty force separation and cause arguments.

Each story in Sour Heart is super powerful, almost eye watering. Each story is packed to the brim with observations and emotions. It’s brutal in places (‘The Empty the Empty the Empty’) is jaw dropping in the portrayal of bullying a young girl and boy in the name of…sexual exploration? Weird childhood games? I can’t really describe the motivations of these kids, but it was shocking. Yet ‘The Evolution of My Brother’ is poignant and sweet in exploring the changing relationship between a brother and sister. If the intention is to provoke emotion, Sour Heart certainly does so. I liked Zhang’s style and her willingness to take on any subject. Sometimes I felt the exploits of these kids was too much and I just hope that it’s fiction! But I couldn’t stop reading and I would definitely check out what Zhang writes next.

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At the beginning I think, I'm not sure I'll finish this. The writing is of course a bit sour; mean and explicit and unlikable, which makes reading difficult but is also so interesting in small bits. I really struggled with the first few even while I enjoyed them intellectually.
But actually, what a journey. By the end I think, this is actually beautifully honest and uncomfortable and, dare I say it, sweet. While the stories could mostly all be of one person, they are of one family in a show more fragmented and cohesive way. And the truth of all the anger and sadness and discomfort and searching make the moments of family and identity that much stronger. Of course, I also like sour fruit. show less

I loved these stories! The writer really captured the voices of angsty kids and pre-teens, and the private, dark worlds kids can have, along with the loneliness. I liked the subtle ways the stories connected, too. It felt organic since the characters were part of a similar community in New York. I also feel like the book captured family relationships in China in ways I hadn’t seen before but I felt more in this book than in other fiction about Asian Americans I’ve read.

I was excited to pick up Jenny Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, after hearing so much hype both about this author and the first book out from Lena Dunham's new imprint. The stories primarily speak to the immigrant experience (China to US) and many of them specifically deal with the added points of view of lower class life and the experiences of children and young people. Reading the first story, I had to do a double take to see whether this was memoir or fiction, the writing is so show more personal and raw. In that sense, these stories had the feel at times of Bonnie Jo Campbell's Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. Sometimes difficult to read because they do feel so intimate, but so real and necessary, you can't stop reading.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks! show less