Pieces of Gold

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

An atmospheric first novel by Mosny, former staff writer and editor at Glamour, explores the intricacies of a close-knit family of Chinese-Americans when the matriarch is weakened by a stroke. Jenny, who has married "white-ghost" Tomas, and is raising three "American" children in New Jersey, hears from her brother that their mother, Ma Ma, is in the hospital. The ensuing year of her mother's healing is a struggle for Jenny. To be a good Chinese daughter (as the precious only girl, Jenny is her mother's "thousand pieces of gold" ) and take care of Ma Ma while also functioning as a wife and mother, proves a crushing emotional responsibility. Mosny is most effective with the chapters in Jenny's first-person narration, with their true-ringing family dynamics, especially the raw currents between the newly invalided Ma Ma and Jenny's father, Ba Ba. In flashbacks the reader finds an ironic depiction of their previous lives in China and on these shores, which explains some but not enough of why family members behave as they do. While Mosny attempts to portray the difficulties faced by a particular generation worried over ailing parents and their own mortality, complicated here by ethnic background, she also intends to provide a picture of the elders' past to cast light on the family's present situation. Sadly, this light is far too dim and what might have been the more interesting of the two stories goes nowhere. Though Jenny concludes that the stroke has actually helped Ma Ma to transcend her tightly restricted experience, the reader is ultimately frustrated by not knowing enough about the characters, despite the fascinating glimpses of Chinese family culture. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

This debut novel by a Chinese American about taking care of ailing elderly parents begins with much promise but peters out into short chapters that note, but don't dig deeply into, the passing of time. The story begins as Jenny, the mother of three-the youngest still a baby-learns that her 70-year-old mother has had a stroke. The early chapters are particularly effective, detailing Jenny's shock at her mother's fear of dying, and her attempts to feed and wash the older woman while simultaneously trying to take care of her own husband, East European Tomas, and family. As she and her brother Kent, a cardiologist, adjust to the change, Jenny recalls her mother's life in China, where she endured the Japanese invasion, afterward becoming unhappily married to their father, who immigrated to the US as a child, fought in WWII, then returned to China to find a bride. Ma Ma arrived in New York married and pregnant in 1949. Perhaps Ba Ba was disappointed at not receiving the large dowry he expected, but in any case the marriage soon broke down, though Ma Ma refused a divorce. All her life, Jenny has tried to be a good daughter (even though her mother was disappointed when she married a non-Chinese), and now she wants to take care of Ma Ma in her own home, but brother Kent persuades her that it would be too difficult. While Ma Ma slowly recovers, undergoes physical therapy, and moves back into her old Chinatown apartment, Jenny has to deal with ailing Ba Ba, whose constant anger, she now realizes, probably hid feelings of loss and disappointment. After Ba Ba dies, the story consists of brief updates on Jenny's prospering lot and Ma Ma's improving health. It seems that life, often previously so hardfor Ma Ma, has become rich in "Jick fook"-accumulated happiness. Nicely evocative details of immigrant life and generational conflict, though not enough to turn a promising concept into full-blooded novel. .