When Susan was eleven, her mother died, It was very sudden and unexpected, as it was a result of elective plastic surgery. As the sole American child in the family, she felt cut off and excluded, and had no space or ability to process her feelings. Her family, Vietnamese boat people refugees, refused to talk about what had happened. In college, her desperation and lack of much experience outside her family left her vulnerable to a cult, which she luckily did extricate herself from.
As a young adult, she quit her finance job to pursue writing and acting in a one-woman show about her mother. He family at first was confused and angry. She was airing dirty laundry. But as the show was successful, and she expanded it, she learned so much more about her mother and her family.
Her parents and her two older brothers managed to escape on a boat on their fifth attempt, landing in Malaysia where her sister was born, and waited for refugee status and permission to move on a final country, which they were thrilled when it turned out to be the United States. They ended up in California where they opened a manicure shop, Susan's Nails, named after Susan, the first American child. They eventually opened a couple more, closed the first one, and brought over a lot of their siblings, who also went to work in the manicure shop. Susan and her sister worked there after school from very young ages, and as an adult looking back, Susan was a bit surprised to realize how her parents worked seven days a week and yet still had time for them and still had energy for family celebrations and holidays. And Susan also became furious about her mother's dissatisfaction with her body (which of course society passed along to Susan) and the doctor--particularly when she learned his license was suspended when he operated on her. Which doesn't mean much.
As Susan, now married, debates about having a child, she would like to lay to rest her qualm about body image, about maternal instincts, about multigenerational trauma, about grief, and about familial love that can wound as well as support. She works all this out through her stage show, and now in this book. In the end, I loved her realization that she wasn't just the manicurist's daughter, but also the manicurists' daughter, because her father, despite his complete inability to discuss anything of importance to her, was still always right there, at her mother's side, working his fingers to the bone as well, and holding the family together after her death, the best he could. He was often in the background, when he wasn't disappointing her, and she comes to realize what she always wanted--for him to see her and accept her for who she was--was also the grace she should give him. I found that a really powerful message.
I know this is going to be a bold statement but I liked this book more than Crying in H Mart. Both about American daughters of Asian immigrants dealing with wildly different cultures and expectations, and then grief. But I found Susan more open and more honest--about herself and her limitations in particular. She doesn't sugarcoat to make herself come off well. And it's so much easier to be empathetic with someone who freely admits her own faults. Family is always difficult but Susan shows that healing is possible, even when the fissures are substantial.
This book is published by Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan, my employer.
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