Jin’s descriptions of Nan’s journey back to the page are amusing, with enough veiled references to well-known poets and writers to keep a literary sleuth busy. The book ends with an epilogue made up of Nan’s poems, which refer to moments you’ll recognize in the book. This, too, is clever.
But the truest weave of this book needs no decoding. It is the simple, heartbreaking story of a family’s quest for solid ground — a story that will make you marvel at how much we are expected to infer from that familiar phrase “the American Dream.”
HA JIN | Barnes & Noble, 600 Beacon St, Boston | October 30 at 7 pm | 267.8484
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Every few years, a fall publishing season emerges that should remind us that Boston could be the literary epicenter of America.
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Big names, new names, and a handful of poets provide worthwhile reading this winter to distract you from the Sopranos reruns on A&E.
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To enter a Bishop poem with the mind and senses wide open is to be scrubbed back to first principles.
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Books
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, Media, Books, Poetry, Brandeis University, William Butler Yeats, Philip Roth, Ha Jin, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Less
