Clever and beguiling ... She flips stereotypes on their ears ... Audacious ... While humorously unpacking stereotypes about identity, Chou never condescends to her characters. The stories can become surprisingly tender or melancholic and wistful or even furious.
Elaine Hsieh Chou dazzles with these rich, highly original and sometimes shocking stories ... Chou wanders in and out of a kind of magic realism, exploring our capability for self-deception and cruelty.
Chou is consistent in her ability to create an eerie, uncanny version of circumstances we could expect in real life. Each story ends in a way that makes you tip your head back in bewilderment, a reminder that there is no base reality on which everyone’s narrative is built ... sparkles in the way it infuses dark concepts with whimsy and detail. Chou seems less invested in establishing a firm stance on anything and more about unsettling assumptions and questioning the first version of the story that you hear—her answer to the titular question is infinitely more questions.
