When seasoned journalists turn to fiction, I often think 'uh oh, here comes trouble.' ... Land of Big Numbers, the debut story collection from Te-Ping Chen [...] is as brilliant an instance of a journalist's keen eye manifesting in luminous fiction as one can find ... Chen [...] seems to have no problem at all bridging the divides of class, gender, and ideology. What else can explain this unlikely page-turner of a book, except her already envious career as an embedded journalist, reporting on everything from the Chinese criminal justice system to tech companies ... Pretty much everything about Land of Big Numbers is specific and keen yet somehow generalizable. These stories could appear as news right now, at any moment. They could be deeply reported longform features, even some of the magical realism detours Chen makes, such as a story about a life-changing, mind-bending new fruit. The broad strokes of it all, truly, could happen anywhere — maybe right where you are. It is a gift to read stories like this. Almost any one of them is worth the price of admission.
... a dazzling debut collection ... In a series of rich and varied portraits, mostly of life in China but including forays to Atlantic City, N.J., and Arizona, [Chen] unleashes a powerful and enticing new voice, at times as strange as the dark fairy tale master Carmen Maria Machado, at others as inventive as the absurdist king George Saunders — but always layered with the texture available to a foreign correspondent who has seen it all ... Story by story, in China and the U.S., Chen builds a world in which oppression and contentment coexist, not some awful near future but the bizarre here and now ... At its most elegant, a Chen story isn’t all an artful reimagining of a cool newspaper feature but instead something more imagistic and elemental, a reflection on how we all live, no matter where we live. The logic of her observations can be terrifying ... There is virtuoso writing, which serves to sharpen her political allegories.
... exquisitely observed ... The stories are tethered to the realities of political repression and class yet are imbued with elements of magical realism. Together, they create a vivid portrait of life in contemporary China that is stifled by state control and yet tinged with humor, irony and tremendous longing.
Chen gives breath and form to those who may be overlooked ... Even while grappling with social critiques, which often can veer into cynicism, there is a surprising buoyancy to Chen’s stories. Combining her journalistic acumen with her skill as a storyteller, she brings readers otherworldly joy ... In some ways, Chen’s stories are so real they seem prophetic ... a bold achievement in both the breadth of its themes and the precision of its details. It is an ambitious undertaking for sure, spanning borders and chronologies, and narrators of no one common biography. Still, Te-Ping Chen anchors us by providing unexpected solace through stories that celebrate how the strongest of human impulses is to preserve the freedom to act.
... sophisticated and startling ... Chen's stories often hinge on this kind of irony, where dreams come true but at an unexpected cost ... the characters have wounds, and then even deeper wounds, ones that cannot be easily compensated for ... in Chen's tour de force, 'Gubeikou Spirit,' a group of passengers is stranded in a subway station, at first for a few hours, then days, and then in a surreal stretch, they are left in the station for months ... The story could be a metaphor for stalled reforms or simply an observation of the human condition. All but one of Chen's stories are set in China, but her depictions of human frailty and hope are universal [.]
... acutely observed stories ... [Chen] knows her protagonists as people even as she is able to render their stories into parables about the country ... The Cultural Revolution has, of course, been a staple of Chinese literature...What makes it particularly poignant here is the reader’s realization that the generation involved directly in the affairs of that era is passing on and its legacy — often unacknowledged as this story shows — now increasingly belongs to those who were children then ... Chen’s stories abound in such telling images — the extraordinarily high human costs of creating the new China, so reminiscent of those that have been paid before.
The stories in Land of Big Numbers, Te-Ping Chen’s debut collection, are—to get the headline out of the way—fine, well-crafted works ... At one extreme of the collection’s wide range is a surreal tale of people waiting for weeks in a Beijing station for a train that never comes, or when it does, doesn’t stop ... At the other, is a quiet, quotidian domestic drama of a mixed relationship in the American West stumbling from lack of commitment ... Chen’s strength is ultimately her writing, not in the exotic settings or situations: however well-observed, they have slightest sense of having been observed ... Chen doesn’t ever really wrap her stories up; this story, like the others, and like most things in life, has no real conclusion. Readers must work it out themselves.
Told in a straightforward journalist’s style, Chen’s stories are filled with individuals facing hardships of varying degrees, with no happy endings to be found. Not light reading, but this collection may be of interest to those looking for book group titles addressing the challenges of finding success, happiness, love, and contentment.
Wall Street Journal correspondent Chen emerges as a fiction powerhouse, each of her 10 stories an immersive literary event ... Traversing continents and cultures, moving effortlessly between China and the U.S., Chen deftly presents everyday lives that entertain, educate, and universally resonate.
The often haunting stories in Chen’s strong debut follow characters striving for a better futures in China as buried memories begin to surface ... Still, Chen’s sweeping collection comprises many small moments of beauty.
