RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIt is indeed with wisdom and dexterity that Go intertwines the stories of three periods of Lito’s life ... He may not find the precise answer, but his quest for it, in Go’s elegant and incisive prose, is perpetually captivating.
Elysha Chang
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewChang’s storytelling is beautifully subtle, often studded with sublime wit, stating the facts simply and allowing the reader to make their own judgments ... The multiple perspectives are presented in various time periods without a consistent pattern, which is intermittently confusing and occasionally frustrating. Still, this story of family estrangement and the immigrant saga in America is compelling.
Tara M. Stringfellow
PositiveThe New York Time Book ReviewGiven the novel’s setting, the reader will surely anticipate systemic racism, but even so may be caught off guard by scenes in the book...Yet Memphis is far from joyless, conveying a world where blithe gratification is garnered through traditional women’s work — seamstressing, hairdressing, nursing — as well as through less conventional pursuits, as with the 1960s Black female radicals who find a welcome space for strategizing on Hazel’s porch. There is the sense that these women are familiar to Stringfellow, who, after years of living abroad (Okinawa, Ghana, Cuba, Spain, Italy), has, literally and figuratively, returned home ... Still, there is some discordance in the book’s logic. Only Joan’s chapters are written in the first person, and even as a 10-year-old girl, she expresses herself in a manner more akin to an adult. Then, years later, as a high school junior taking honors history, she oddly has not even heard of the New Deal ... Contradictions aside, Memphis is a rhapsodic hymn to Black women.
