Her immensely powerful new book confirms Yang as one of America's sharpest nonfiction writers ... The book is stronger for Yang's decision to include fraught, not necessarily flattering, scenes ... For all its harrowing detail, Where Rivers Part lets the reader see the world afresh.
This journey across the world takes more than a decade, and it is told simply and earnestly in Yang’s limpid prose. She takes her time, and the pace of the book is luxurious ... Yang’s memoirs of Hmong life, traditions and displacement are not just powerful additions to the canon of immigrant literature — they are powerful books about life itself.
Yang strikes deep with prose that is spare, concrete, sometimes indeed flat ... Yang evokes the touch of a hand, an angle of the light, the savor of a rare orange or heart of palm with a sensual immediacy uncontaminated by fancy words. Early on, time can stand still for long chapters. Later on, it happens that years melt away in a sentence, or between paragraphs.
In an audacious act of love and art, Yang writes this memoir from her mother’s point of view ... There are moments of poignant beauty. There are also humiliations. Tswb is small and brown; her English is not good. In America, she is easily overlooked. In this exceptional book, Yang shows what a mistake it is to underestimate her.
At its best, the book is compassionate, lyrical, tender, and insightful. Unfortunately, the narratorial voice often feels alienated and overwritten, a contrast that the stunningly intimate prologue—which the author wrote from her own perspective—renders particularly stark. Nonetheless, Yang offers an engaging story of escape, redemption, and heartbreak.
