All That Matters
Wayson Choy
Other Press
<p>"A new book from Choy is an event. His writing has a quiet integrity and an exquisite grace."—*Maclean's*<br></p><p>Winner of the 2005 Trillium Book Award, finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize, and long-listed for the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, <em>All That Matters</em> is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Wayson Choy's award-winning first novel, <em>The Jade Peony.</em>Kiam-Kim is three years old when he arrives by ship at Gold Mountain with his father and his grandmother, Poh-Poh. From his earliest years, Kiam-Kim is deeply conscious of his responsibility to maintain the family's honor and to set an example for his younger siblings. However, his life is increasingly complicated by his burgeoning awareness of the world outside Vancouver's Chinatown. Choy once again accomplishes the extraordinary: blending a haunting evocation of tenacious, ancient traditions with a precise, funny, and very modern coming-of-age story.</p>From Publishers Weekly<p>In Choy's lovingly detailed novel (following <em>The Jade Peony</em> and the memoir <em>Paper Shadows</em>), three-year-old Kiam-Kim Chen journeys from China to Vancouver in 1925 with his father and his grandmother, Poh-Poh (a former Chinese slave girl). As he matures, he gains a stepmother, an adopted brother and two stepsiblings. Poh-Poh's unsettling stories of kitchen gods and ghosts provide vivid reminders of the Old China the family left behind. Set pieces form the novel's core, like Poh-Poh's elaborate preparations for her mah-jongg party when Kiam is eight. That's when he first encounters Jenny Chong, a "tiger" girl with a fierce temper (and, eventually, the good looks to match it). When Poh-Poh dies, Old China's ghosts really do come back—at least the ghost of Poh-Poh (who haunts Kiam's stepbrother, Sekky, so intensely that Kiam's embarrassed father hires an exorcist). As Kiam grows up, the relationship among Kiam, Jenny and Jack O'Connor, the Irish-Catholic boy next door (whom Poh-Poh had barred from their house) gets tangled in the complexities of WWII and the ethnic politics of the neighborhood. Choy's novel captures the spirit in which exile turns into assimilation. <em>(Feb.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>Review<p>Publishers Weekly <br><br>In Choy's lovingly detailed novel (following <em>The Jade Peony</em> and the memoir <em>Paper Shadows</em>), three-year-old Kiam-Kim Chen journeys from China to Vancouver in 1925 with his father and his grandmother, Poh-Poh (a former Chinese slave-girl). Choy's novel captures the spirit in which exile turns into assimilation.<br></p><p>Kirkus Reviews <br><br>Choy’s second novel, about growing up Chinese in Canada, is a companion piece to his prizewinning debut (<em>The Jade Peony</em>, 1997)A pleasant...work of immigrant literature.<br></p><p>Library Journal <br><br>[<em>All That Matters</em>] is richly told and liberally sprinkled with defined Cantonese phrases in the Sze Yup dialect. The descriptions of Chinese life and culture in Vancouver are reminiscent of those in the first novel [<em>The Jade Peony</em>]...Both novels end at much the same time, which leaves this reviewer wondering whether Choy is planning to turn the Chen family's story into a tidy trilogy. Readers whose background parallels the Chens' will especially appreciate Choy's characters.<br></p><p>Oregonian <br><br>...Choy laces the characters' lives into the fascinating historical background of Vancouver's Chinatown... the overall story line is worthwhile for its thorough examination of an unlikely family that could not have existed without Gold Mountain. </p>