Honoring the full depth...in a single review is as impossible as celebrating the full richness of Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in a single month ... Wong’s book is reminiscent of an abstract watercolor, free-flowing, nonlinear, without clear borders.
The book catalogues the highs and lows of the literary life, turning over, at length, the joys of acceptance, the ache of rejection, the ecstasy of professional recognition and the sting of casual racism in the field ... Wong has a sharp eye for detail, irony and metaphor ... While...particular citations feel at times redundant, like a second self brought in to lend authority to the discursive throughline, they showcase the literary prowess and commitment to craft that Wong has nourished over the course of her career.
Blazing, lyrical ... Wong pairs her painfully specific knowledge of poverty, cultural dislocation, and discrimination with a poet’s conjuring skills and a sociologist’s research ... It’s the visceral descriptions of sorrow and anxiety that stick with the reader.
Like the stars in the sky, all kinds of shapes and stories can be crafted through the non-chronological format of the book, which made rereading sections of it after finishing all the more powerful ... The most poignant and humorous moments are those shared between Wong and her mother, a fiercely loving and exceedingly wise woman ... Healing is not some enlightenment where the anger evaporates and the universe is magically in balance. Instead, it’s an allocation of energy towards care and real love.
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is experimental in form and dense with beautiful sensory images, particularly of food. In her own indelible way, Wong records her coming of age and finding her place in her family, in poetry and in the world.
[A] window into open secrets ... Reminded me that Asian American literature could be more than stories of poverty or prestige porn. Reading it is not always comfortable—some anecdotes are sad, squeamish, and cringe-inducing, but it is an honest look at a working-class community that is too often forgotten. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City refuses summary with its sprawling essays of how love, community, and writing make us resilient.
Wong cannily addresses racism in academia and the long arc of finding her identity as a poet in several essays ... With a poet’s ear for language and a satirist’s eye for human foibles, Wong masterfully marries her personal story with larger questions about Chinese American identity.
Wong's sharp sense of humor is fueled by a healthy dose of righteous anger, and her lyric energy bursts from almost every sentence ... She writes candidly about her shoplifting phase, her misery at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and her disgust for bigotry and cultural appropriation.
