Available October 19th

BAD BAD GIRL is a genre-bending novel spanning continents, generations, and cultures, following a rebellious mother and a rebellious daughter jousting across decades of curiosity and ambition, elation and disappointment, intimacy and misunderstanding.

My mother had died, but still I heard her voice …

Gish’s mother –Loo Shu-hsin–is born in 1925 to a wealthy Shanghai family whose girls are expected to restrain themselves.  Her beloved nursemaid is the closest thing to a mother she has, yet she is torn from her and constantly reprimanded:  “Bad bad girl!  You don’t know how to talk!”  Sent to a modern Catholic school by her progressive father, she receives not only an English name–Agnes–but a first-rate education.  To his delight, she excels.  But even then he can only sigh, “Too bad.  If you were a boy, you could accomplish a lot.”  Agnes finds solace in books and, in 1947, announces her intention to pursue a PhD in America.  As the Communist revolution looks, she sets sail–never to return. 

Lonely and adrift in New Yori, Agnes begins dating Jen Chao-Pe, an engineering student.  They do their best to block out the increasingly dire plight of their families back home and successfully establish a new American life:  Marriage! A number one son! A house in the suburbs!  By the time Gish is born, though, the news from China is proving inescapable; their marriage is foundering; and Agnes, confronted with a strong-willed, outspoken daughter distinctly reminiscent of herself, is repeating the refrain–Bad bad girl!  You don’t know how tot talk!”–as she recapitulates the harshness of her own childhood.

Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written:  genre-bending, courageous, wholly heartbreaking.