Inez Tan's Blog - Posts Tagged "comics"
Slightly Surreal Books About Home and Belonging
There’s no place like a good book when you’re feeling far from home. I’m happy to recommend several!
1. St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
In the title story, the children of werewolves are sent to Catholic school to learn how to be more human. Everything by Karen Russell crackles with magical invention, spunky protagonists, and haunting losses. Children disappear on sleds made of crab shells, hover sleeplessly in hot air balloons, and wrestle alligators at shambling theme parks. Read only if you’re ready to be knocked off your feet and into the stratosphere.
2. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
‘Quirky,’ as she’s often called, doesn’t begin to cover it – what Miranda July captures is how odd every one of us really is on the inside. Her characters are compellingly honest and piercingly funny. These stories bring to life the strangeness of the ordinary – you’ll never look at a patio or a hardware store the same way again.
3. How to Life Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
"Chronological living is a kind of lie. That's why I don't do it anymore." Charles Yu, time machine technician, is searching for his lost father - who disappeared some time after building the first time machine. This book is for anyone who's felt strangely far from the ones who should be closest to you - and maybe also for anybody who's struggled with the time paradox of shooting their future self along the way.
4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Do you have mixed feelings about your hometown, heritage, education, diction, class status, etc.? If so, the immortal story of Pip, Miss Havisham, Estella, and Magwitch is for you. Writing at a turning point of globalization, Dickens excelled at rendering visible the invisible ties connecting everyone, everywhere.
5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
“I don’t know how it was like where you were,” Kathy H. narrates, deftly drawing us into her 20th century England, “but at Hailsham we had to have some form of medical almost every week…” The students at Hailsham boarding school have always been told that they were special. Thirty-one-year-old Kathy H.’s account of growing up there is full of unsettled feelings whose significance didn’t become clear until much later –like anyone’s childhood, in some ways, but far more disturbing in others.
6. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
A young woman who’s suffered terrible losses slowly opens up to a strange young man and his even stranger mother. Just about all of Banana Yoshimoto’s stories contain variations on this plot, but she never fails to nail what it’s like to learn to live again in the wake of a devastating tragedy. Enjoy the comforts of pork tonkatsu, gorgeously rendered seasons, and falling asleep next to the refrigerator.
7. The Collected Stories by Amy Hempel
“What you forget, living here [at the beach], is that just because you have stopped sinking doesn’t mean you’re not still underwater.” Amy Hempel is the master of hidden catastrophes and sublimely torqued sentences. The startling revelations in these very short stories are almost all in the subtext. Restless survivors, dying women, grieving widowers – what these characters don’t say is always just perceivable beneath the surface of what they do. I'm also sneaking her latest collection, Sing to It, on to this list, because you're not going to be able to stop reading.
8. The Resident Tourist Series by Troy Chin
Former music producer Troy Chin returns to his hometown of Singapore and faces a barrage of well-meaning questions from everyone he meets: Are you Singaporean? What are you doing back here? You don’t have a job? You don’t have a plan!? This autobiographical comic book series tells the stories of his answers as he tries to figure them out himself. A deft blend of wry humor, self-critical nostalgia, and genuine ambivalence.
These are just a few of my favorite books that help to remind me I’m not alone in searching for somewhere to belong. I hope they’ll get to keep you company, too.
Inez Tan is the author of This is Where I Won't Be Alone, stories about home and belonging in Singapore and abroad. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry at the University of California, Irvine. For more of her writing and information on ordering the book wherever you live, visit http://ineztan.com.
1. St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
In the title story, the children of werewolves are sent to Catholic school to learn how to be more human. Everything by Karen Russell crackles with magical invention, spunky protagonists, and haunting losses. Children disappear on sleds made of crab shells, hover sleeplessly in hot air balloons, and wrestle alligators at shambling theme parks. Read only if you’re ready to be knocked off your feet and into the stratosphere.
2. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
‘Quirky,’ as she’s often called, doesn’t begin to cover it – what Miranda July captures is how odd every one of us really is on the inside. Her characters are compellingly honest and piercingly funny. These stories bring to life the strangeness of the ordinary – you’ll never look at a patio or a hardware store the same way again.
3. How to Life Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
"Chronological living is a kind of lie. That's why I don't do it anymore." Charles Yu, time machine technician, is searching for his lost father - who disappeared some time after building the first time machine. This book is for anyone who's felt strangely far from the ones who should be closest to you - and maybe also for anybody who's struggled with the time paradox of shooting their future self along the way.
4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Do you have mixed feelings about your hometown, heritage, education, diction, class status, etc.? If so, the immortal story of Pip, Miss Havisham, Estella, and Magwitch is for you. Writing at a turning point of globalization, Dickens excelled at rendering visible the invisible ties connecting everyone, everywhere.
5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
“I don’t know how it was like where you were,” Kathy H. narrates, deftly drawing us into her 20th century England, “but at Hailsham we had to have some form of medical almost every week…” The students at Hailsham boarding school have always been told that they were special. Thirty-one-year-old Kathy H.’s account of growing up there is full of unsettled feelings whose significance didn’t become clear until much later –like anyone’s childhood, in some ways, but far more disturbing in others.
6. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
A young woman who’s suffered terrible losses slowly opens up to a strange young man and his even stranger mother. Just about all of Banana Yoshimoto’s stories contain variations on this plot, but she never fails to nail what it’s like to learn to live again in the wake of a devastating tragedy. Enjoy the comforts of pork tonkatsu, gorgeously rendered seasons, and falling asleep next to the refrigerator.
7. The Collected Stories by Amy Hempel
“What you forget, living here [at the beach], is that just because you have stopped sinking doesn’t mean you’re not still underwater.” Amy Hempel is the master of hidden catastrophes and sublimely torqued sentences. The startling revelations in these very short stories are almost all in the subtext. Restless survivors, dying women, grieving widowers – what these characters don’t say is always just perceivable beneath the surface of what they do. I'm also sneaking her latest collection, Sing to It, on to this list, because you're not going to be able to stop reading.
8. The Resident Tourist Series by Troy Chin
Former music producer Troy Chin returns to his hometown of Singapore and faces a barrage of well-meaning questions from everyone he meets: Are you Singaporean? What are you doing back here? You don’t have a job? You don’t have a plan!? This autobiographical comic book series tells the stories of his answers as he tries to figure them out himself. A deft blend of wry humor, self-critical nostalgia, and genuine ambivalence.
These are just a few of my favorite books that help to remind me I’m not alone in searching for somewhere to belong. I hope they’ll get to keep you company, too.
Inez Tan is the author of This is Where I Won't Be Alone, stories about home and belonging in Singapore and abroad. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry at the University of California, Irvine. For more of her writing and information on ordering the book wherever you live, visit http://ineztan.com.
