A Good Fall

Reviews

“Quiet, careful, restrained prose—prose whose absence of flourish can, at times, make it all the more eloquent.”

“In short, the storyteller’s art is richly on display here. Ha Jin has a singular talent for snaring a reader. His premises are gripping, his emotional bedrock hard and true…captivating.”

“This may be Ha Jin’s best work yet, his stories often ascending to the mystical penumbra we expect of Singer, Malamud, or O’Connor.”

“[Jin] is a master of the straightforward line; he makes the most of his sparseness…no-frills sentences about Chinese immigrants who lead no-frills lives in New York.”

“Jin employs a simple, workmanlike style to match the lives of his characters. But instead of feeling flat-footed, his unvarnished prose adds a no-nonsense charm to the stories.”

“Ha Jin’s masterful storytelling persists—meticulous, droll, convincing, populated with memorable characters—not to mention the indelible portrait of an immigrant life he gives us. What is also consistent is his prowess to study and reveal, often with heartfelt humor, the compromised and damaged heart and soul and the impact of time and history on ordinary people.”

“National Book Award–winner Ha Jin continues his intimate, up-close look at Chinese immigrant life in A Good Fall with twelve stories…all artfully turned out in Jin’s quietly seismic style.”

“A collection of sublime moments…Perhaps Jin’s point is that despite all the suffering and turmoil involved in living in America, the strong may triumph here after all. It’s a message worth hearing these days.”

“His best work so far, this collection includes immortal stories of the immigrant experience, comparable to the best of Malamud and Singer.”

“In this new collection of stories, former Emory University professor Ha Jin reflects on the life of Chinese immigrants in America, crafting each fleeting portrait with a spare precision and attention to detail uncanny for a relative newcomer to the English language.”

“Everyone in A Good Fall struggles with past and present, and Ha Jin requires dynamic change of them all…these understated clashes of culture reveal careful thematic design and provide an almost 360-degree view of this select human experience: The concerns of people everywhere trying to make a better life come alive, one deceptively simple story at a time.”

“Included [here] are the rich imagery, attention to detail and wry humor that are Jin’s stock in trade and that, when taken together, offer—as fellow writer Francine Prose has noted—‘a compelling exploration of the…terrain that is the human heart.’”

“The author, whose novel Waiting won the National Book Award in 1999, writes with warmth and humor about what it means to be a bewildered stranger in a strange land, no matter where one is born.”

“With startling clarity, Jin explores the challenges, loneliness and uplift associated with discovering one’s place in America…With piercing insight, Jin paints a vast, fascinating portrait of a neighborhood and a people in flux.”

“Twelve engrossing, visceral tales about the difficulties faced by Chinese immigrants in America…Jin’s prose (and particularly his dialogue) is baldly direct, without flourishes but not without nuance.”

“In his first story collection since 2000, Jin offers twelve visceral tales that read with the immediacy of videotaped interviews. Set in Queens, New York, they illuminate the difficulties faced by Chinese immigrants grappling with exploitative employers, demanding relatives, and the rub between American and Chinese attitudes towards family.”

“Each story is interesting and well narrated…Thanks to superb performances by the full cast, the distinct voices transition beautifully from the page to the ear…a great production.”

“Jin again captures the smallest details to create uniquely resonating portraits of everyday people…Jin’s writing clearly has mass appeal, most notably exemplified by National Book Award winner Waiting. This new work will be welcomed by any reader and is an excellent companion piece to The Bridegroom, a collection whose characters are the Chinese counterparts of characters featured here.”

“Ha Jin’s ear and eye for Chinese American life are acute, as is his sense of how one life can encompass a full spectrum of irony, desperation, and magic…The quest for freedom yields surprising and resonant complications in Ha Jin’s sorrowful, funny, and bittersweet stories.”

“These tales are at once universal and particular…Jin writes with a direct, unfussy style that captures the odd cadences of these lives lived in transition…Jin tells every character’s story with a mixture of compassion and humor, conveying the validity of his or her daily worries but showing too that, as with all human complications, and no matter our cultural heritage, we are often our own worst enemies.”

“There are eleven readers for the twelve short stories. All were good selections for the particular story they read, some even demonstrating an appropriate accent which added to the ambience. Every reader captured the emotional struggles of the various characters. Excellent listening.”

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