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Cinema Love
' Cinema Love is not just an extraordinary debut but a future classic' Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers
'A tender and enrapturing feat of storytelling' Vanessa Chan, author of The Storm We Made
'Epic in its reach yet so intimate and nuanced in its ability to break the heart of its reader' Wiz Wharton, author of Ghost Girl, Banana
For over thirty years, Old Second and Bao Mei have cobbled together a meagre existence in New York City's Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two share an unusual past. In rural Fuzhou, before they emigrated, they frequented The Workers' a theatre where gay men cruised for love.
While classic war films played, Old Second and his fellow countrymen found intimacy in the privacy of the Workers' Cinema's screening rooms. Elsewhere, in the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets to closeted men - guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when secrets are unveiled, they set in motion a series of haunting events that propel Old Second and Bao Mei towards an uncertain future in America.
Spanning three timelines - post-socialist China, 1980s Chinatown, and contemporary New York - Cinema Love is a tender epic about men and women who find themselves in forbidden and frustrated relationships as they grapple with the past and their unspoken desires.
'A tender and enrapturing feat of storytelling' Vanessa Chan, author of The Storm We Made
'Epic in its reach yet so intimate and nuanced in its ability to break the heart of its reader' Wiz Wharton, author of Ghost Girl, Banana
For over thirty years, Old Second and Bao Mei have cobbled together a meagre existence in New York City's Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two share an unusual past. In rural Fuzhou, before they emigrated, they frequented The Workers' a theatre where gay men cruised for love.
While classic war films played, Old Second and his fellow countrymen found intimacy in the privacy of the Workers' Cinema's screening rooms. Elsewhere, in the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets to closeted men - guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when secrets are unveiled, they set in motion a series of haunting events that propel Old Second and Bao Mei towards an uncertain future in America.
Spanning three timelines - post-socialist China, 1980s Chinatown, and contemporary New York - Cinema Love is a tender epic about men and women who find themselves in forbidden and frustrated relationships as they grapple with the past and their unspoken desires.
294 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2024
179 people are currently reading
12075 people want to read
About the author
Jiaming Tang
1 book71 followersJiaming Tang is a queer immigrant writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama. He is an Emerging Writer Fellow at The Center for Fiction, and his stories and essays have been published in AGNI, Lit Hub, Joyland Magazine, and elsewhere. CINEMA LOVE is his first book.
Jiaming is also serving as a judge for the 2023 Restless Books Nonfiction Prize for New Immigrant Writing and he was formerly the nonfiction editor at Black Warrior Review.
Jiaming is also serving as a judge for the 2023 Restless Books Nonfiction Prize for New Immigrant Writing and he was formerly the nonfiction editor at Black Warrior Review.
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August 24, 2024
The book follows the lives of gay men and the women who loved and married them. It has several parts with the first one focusing on closeted men in China visiting old cinemas where illicit love was available and how they married to further hide themselves. The story then moves to America and immigrant life, and the men face the new added horror of racism and the women face the same struggles with immigration and navigating their loveless marriages. I was drawn to this by my fascination with these secret cinemas. Over time, I have become aware of these cinemas in every country I have lived and even in literature, such as Tennessee Williams’ 'The Mysteries of the Joy Rio'
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September 6, 2025Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
****
Dear God, this was heart-breaking. I don’t think I was quite prepared for how heart-breaking because I keep seeing reviews deploying words like “soft” and “tender.” I guess soft, tender things can also be heart-breaking? But holy shit. I am emotionally foetal right now.
So, in the most basic terms, this is a book about gay Chinese men and the women who marry them, the way their lives are tragically entwined by the multi-directional cruelties of patriarchy, homophobia, and--following their immigration to America--racism. This is also a book about ghosts and about grief, as it follows its protagonists from 1980s rural China to contemporary New York, the past and the present weaving together in a way that gives the whole book a dreamlike, haunting quality.
It opens with one of the central characters, Young Second, leaving his village because he was caught embracing (just embracing) with another boy. When we next catch up with him, he’s in the city of Furzhou where he has fallen in love with a man named Shun-Er, he met at the Worker’s Cinema. The cinema itself is a known meet-up space for queer men, who have sex and, sometimes fall in love, in the screen rooms to a background of ever-repeating war films. A woman called Bao Mei runs the ticket office, protecting the men within, to honour her brother, another queer man who died in an accident and whose benign ghost she believes is haunting her. In 1980s New York, following the disastrous closing of the cinema and the pain and violence rippling out from that closure, Bao Mei and Young Second are now married (for companionship and convivence, not love). Shun-Er’s wife, Yan Hua, who was involved in the closure of the cinema, now a widow, is also in New York, having made a green card marriage to Frog, another Chinese immigrant. From there, time and circumstance, draw them back into each other’s lives, where ghosts, guilt, a reckoning with the past and the possibility of a future are all waiting.
Y’know even reading my attempt at a plot summary leaves me boggles why anyone who read this, reviewer or reader, came away without being harrowed as fuck. Because I remain as harrowed as fuck. I will say, to be fair, this isn’t tragedy-wanking sad, nor is it gratuitously unpleasant. It tends to deal as much with the subtler anguishes of marginalised identity--the loss of belonging, the erosion of hope for the self--as the more overt cruelties (though there is also violence and the expectation of violence, and a death by suicide). There is also beauty here, especially in Tang’s gorgeous writing, his capacity to find tenderness in situations that tend to be culturally portrayed as sordid (for example, of Young Second, Shun-Er and the cinema, ““The place where they first met, and where love became more than words and gentle touching. It was a thickness in the air. A taste, too: of sweat and saliva, blood in the mouth”), and the intricacy of his character work. Even in moments of terrible violence and suffering, Tang has a way of finding humanity, even if that very humanity is a cause of pain.
I think what really gripped me about Cinema Love, in the end, was not necessarily the semi-familiar stories of queer longing and queer loss, but the inclusion of Bao Mei and Yan Hua. Bao Mei I struggled with slightly because so much of her own identity felt subsumed into the lives of the gay men surrounding her - first her brother, then Young Second, then all the men of the cinema she briefly and poignantly attempts to memorialise in fake letters home, charting happy endings for all these strangers - but perhaps that was the point. Yan Hua, though, for me, became the novel’s triumph. While her actions lead to the closure of the cinema, and indeed, her own husband’s death suicide, the book is very clear that she is ultimately as much a victim of her own pain as anyone else in the book, and while she informs on the cinema, it is ultimately those in power who move against the cinema and the men it shelters. That she lives such a large proportion of her subsequent life in guilt and shame for these actions, to me, just ended up emphasising how cruel, misleading and ultimately futile it is to cast individuals as the villains in stories of marginalised people, when--and I’m sorry to be so trite--it is the context that matters. That shapes us all. That teaches hatred of others and fear for ourselves, like the young policeman, with his broken prayer bracelet.
I’ve seen some reviews mention, with disappointment, that the book touches only briefly upon one of its themes, that the queer men at its centre “had to humiliate their wives to satisfy their desires (but this was easy to forget in the throes of love)”. I actually rather strongly disagree with that, because of the importance both Bao Mei and, especially, Yan Hua play in the narrative. I think in any other book Yan Hua would have been the antagonist. But I was sincerely glad that--eventually--she did seem to find her way to some kind of happiness, some kind of selfhood. And that, to me, was the deepest magic of Cinema Love. Perhaps it’s why so many people insist the book is soft, tender, lovely, when I found it mostly heart-breaking. If we commit to the book’s central thesis that hatred and fear are learned--that they belong to society, not to individuals, who are mostly driven by the same drives, hope for happiness, a longing for connection--then Cinema Love taught me to unlearn them. Taught me to unlearn them for Yan Hua. Yes, she’s fictional, but she does a lot of damage to people who--moving aside complexities of time and race and lived experience--are still some degree “like me.”
And obviously it’s easier to practice things in fiction than it is in life.
But it’s a start.
Because if life teaches us rejection, fiction teaches empathy, and I know which I’d rather learn.
(Also I seem to have a read of bunch of agonising queer book in a row: what was past me thinking when I was doing my NG requests? I would love to read something happy now. Please and thank you.)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
****
Dear God, this was heart-breaking. I don’t think I was quite prepared for how heart-breaking because I keep seeing reviews deploying words like “soft” and “tender.” I guess soft, tender things can also be heart-breaking? But holy shit. I am emotionally foetal right now.
So, in the most basic terms, this is a book about gay Chinese men and the women who marry them, the way their lives are tragically entwined by the multi-directional cruelties of patriarchy, homophobia, and--following their immigration to America--racism. This is also a book about ghosts and about grief, as it follows its protagonists from 1980s rural China to contemporary New York, the past and the present weaving together in a way that gives the whole book a dreamlike, haunting quality.
It opens with one of the central characters, Young Second, leaving his village because he was caught embracing (just embracing) with another boy. When we next catch up with him, he’s in the city of Furzhou where he has fallen in love with a man named Shun-Er, he met at the Worker’s Cinema. The cinema itself is a known meet-up space for queer men, who have sex and, sometimes fall in love, in the screen rooms to a background of ever-repeating war films. A woman called Bao Mei runs the ticket office, protecting the men within, to honour her brother, another queer man who died in an accident and whose benign ghost she believes is haunting her. In 1980s New York, following the disastrous closing of the cinema and the pain and violence rippling out from that closure, Bao Mei and Young Second are now married (for companionship and convivence, not love). Shun-Er’s wife, Yan Hua, who was involved in the closure of the cinema, now a widow, is also in New York, having made a green card marriage to Frog, another Chinese immigrant. From there, time and circumstance, draw them back into each other’s lives, where ghosts, guilt, a reckoning with the past and the possibility of a future are all waiting.
Y’know even reading my attempt at a plot summary leaves me boggles why anyone who read this, reviewer or reader, came away without being harrowed as fuck. Because I remain as harrowed as fuck. I will say, to be fair, this isn’t tragedy-wanking sad, nor is it gratuitously unpleasant. It tends to deal as much with the subtler anguishes of marginalised identity--the loss of belonging, the erosion of hope for the self--as the more overt cruelties (though there is also violence and the expectation of violence, and a death by suicide). There is also beauty here, especially in Tang’s gorgeous writing, his capacity to find tenderness in situations that tend to be culturally portrayed as sordid (for example, of Young Second, Shun-Er and the cinema, ““The place where they first met, and where love became more than words and gentle touching. It was a thickness in the air. A taste, too: of sweat and saliva, blood in the mouth”), and the intricacy of his character work. Even in moments of terrible violence and suffering, Tang has a way of finding humanity, even if that very humanity is a cause of pain.
It didn’t hurt. No, really, it didn’t. But the beating shocked and embarrassed Old Second to his core. It was a complex shock: one that began as joy when the cop’s bracelet broke, and that ended as disbelief. Fear, too, and apprehension. Because if a grandmother’s bracelet could snap from the mindless throwing of a man’s fist, what would happen to the person getting beaten? She’d prayed over that bracelet, had gone to temple to bless it with money folded into animal shapes. And now it was nothing but hail pelting a road. How beautiful the hail was. How musical the sound. But the moment the bracelet snapped, the policeman smiled, his face twisted into one of childlike curiosity. And that look, finally, was what broke the camel’s back. It did what the policeman’s fists sought out to do but couldn’t: make Old Second cry.
He is a youngster, barely a man, Old Second wanted to tell the bystanders. They sent over a child to ruin my life.
And he agreed to do it.
I think what really gripped me about Cinema Love, in the end, was not necessarily the semi-familiar stories of queer longing and queer loss, but the inclusion of Bao Mei and Yan Hua. Bao Mei I struggled with slightly because so much of her own identity felt subsumed into the lives of the gay men surrounding her - first her brother, then Young Second, then all the men of the cinema she briefly and poignantly attempts to memorialise in fake letters home, charting happy endings for all these strangers - but perhaps that was the point. Yan Hua, though, for me, became the novel’s triumph. While her actions lead to the closure of the cinema, and indeed, her own husband’s death suicide, the book is very clear that she is ultimately as much a victim of her own pain as anyone else in the book, and while she informs on the cinema, it is ultimately those in power who move against the cinema and the men it shelters. That she lives such a large proportion of her subsequent life in guilt and shame for these actions, to me, just ended up emphasising how cruel, misleading and ultimately futile it is to cast individuals as the villains in stories of marginalised people, when--and I’m sorry to be so trite--it is the context that matters. That shapes us all. That teaches hatred of others and fear for ourselves, like the young policeman, with his broken prayer bracelet.
I’ve seen some reviews mention, with disappointment, that the book touches only briefly upon one of its themes, that the queer men at its centre “had to humiliate their wives to satisfy their desires (but this was easy to forget in the throes of love)”. I actually rather strongly disagree with that, because of the importance both Bao Mei and, especially, Yan Hua play in the narrative. I think in any other book Yan Hua would have been the antagonist. But I was sincerely glad that--eventually--she did seem to find her way to some kind of happiness, some kind of selfhood. And that, to me, was the deepest magic of Cinema Love. Perhaps it’s why so many people insist the book is soft, tender, lovely, when I found it mostly heart-breaking. If we commit to the book’s central thesis that hatred and fear are learned--that they belong to society, not to individuals, who are mostly driven by the same drives, hope for happiness, a longing for connection--then Cinema Love taught me to unlearn them. Taught me to unlearn them for Yan Hua. Yes, she’s fictional, but she does a lot of damage to people who--moving aside complexities of time and race and lived experience--are still some degree “like me.”
And obviously it’s easier to practice things in fiction than it is in life.
But it’s a start.
Because if life teaches us rejection, fiction teaches empathy, and I know which I’d rather learn.
(Also I seem to have a read of bunch of agonising queer book in a row: what was past me thinking when I was doing my NG requests? I would love to read something happy now. Please and thank you.)
October 6, 2023
Right off the bat, you can tell that Tang’s writing in Cinema Love is exceptional. I can’t even start to tell you how many quotes I have underlined from this book. The writing itself is searing - the story of Yan Hua, Old Second, and Bao Mei (among other characters I hold very dear to my heart) is so powerful.
Cinema Love is such a grotesque, raw, and unabashed look into human nature. It shows that love can easily come with confusing and contradictory feelings like jealousy, hatred, and disgust. These characters literally feel like an open book in this novel - you see their true colors with the good and bad, and end up admiring them anyway for their sheer damn determinedness to stay alive.
The writing makes the reading experience so scenic. Tang’s writing breathes true life into his characters and makes it as if you’re watching a movie - except, Cinema Love gives you an even clearer picture of our main characters because we get to see the perspective of so many people, as a reader you experience their world like an omnipresent God watching down on them. Grief feels like a literal physical weight upon our cast of Cinema Love, so much so that I felt it tangibly through my screen.
I am so so thankful for NetGalley and Dutton for the advanced readers copy. I will hold Cinema Love very close to my heart and I will be wholeheartedly recommending this to my audience and loved ones. To the author Jiaming Tang - whatever you write, I will read. Thank you for this story.
Cinema Love is such a grotesque, raw, and unabashed look into human nature. It shows that love can easily come with confusing and contradictory feelings like jealousy, hatred, and disgust. These characters literally feel like an open book in this novel - you see their true colors with the good and bad, and end up admiring them anyway for their sheer damn determinedness to stay alive.
The writing makes the reading experience so scenic. Tang’s writing breathes true life into his characters and makes it as if you’re watching a movie - except, Cinema Love gives you an even clearer picture of our main characters because we get to see the perspective of so many people, as a reader you experience their world like an omnipresent God watching down on them. Grief feels like a literal physical weight upon our cast of Cinema Love, so much so that I felt it tangibly through my screen.
I am so so thankful for NetGalley and Dutton for the advanced readers copy. I will hold Cinema Love very close to my heart and I will be wholeheartedly recommending this to my audience and loved ones. To the author Jiaming Tang - whatever you write, I will read. Thank you for this story.
June 21, 2024
Jiaming Tang’s debut novel, “Cinema Love” will stay with you long after you finish — its pages filled with tender, heart-wrenching stories of gay men and the women who loved and married them. We start in China, following a man named Old Second who after being discovered to be queer is thrown out and must find a new home. Alone in a new city, he discovers a place, a theater, filled with men just like him and a woman, Bao Mei, who serves as a keeper to their secrets - her connection to the theater revealed as you read on.
Tang does a wonderful job weaving in and out of the main storyline with vignettes and introducing new characters with pasts that help tell and fill in the tapestry of this story as the story moves from one decade to the next and from one continent to another. He balances moments of joy and deep sadness. One moment, in act two, brought tears to my eyes — two characters discover fictitious letters (unbeknownst to them) that tell stories of what could have been for the queer men who visited the theater years ago. We as readers don’t know what happened to these men but hope they found lives filled with love, success and happiness like the letters described.
I liked the blend of literary and historical fiction; if you’re a fan of either genre, pick this up — you won’t regret it!
Tang does a wonderful job weaving in and out of the main storyline with vignettes and introducing new characters with pasts that help tell and fill in the tapestry of this story as the story moves from one decade to the next and from one continent to another. He balances moments of joy and deep sadness. One moment, in act two, brought tears to my eyes — two characters discover fictitious letters (unbeknownst to them) that tell stories of what could have been for the queer men who visited the theater years ago. We as readers don’t know what happened to these men but hope they found lives filled with love, success and happiness like the letters described.
I liked the blend of literary and historical fiction; if you’re a fan of either genre, pick this up — you won’t regret it!
August 28, 2024
A few weeks ago I read an academic paper about people in the asexual spectrum getting married to ‘cope’ living in China. I don’t think there are books about that topic, but I happened to find Cinema Love available and I was instantly intrigued. As the blurb summarizes, Cinema Love is about “gay men in rural China and the women who marry them.”
This was a fantastic reading experience. I loved the writing and the characters and just the story overall. We start in a cinema theater in China that has the same movies all day, every day, because it’s not really a place to watch films. It’s a little utopia for (married) gay men to exist without judgment. The story centers around two women, Bao Mei and Yan Hua, and a gay man named Old Second. It goes from rural China, to Chinatown in NYC, to a contemporary Chinatown still dealing with the racism that emerged during the pandemic. The hardships and resilience of Chinese immigrants gets a lot of focus, which I really liked.
I thought the choice to follow mostly Bao Mei and Yan Hua was an interesting one. I was mostly expecting to learn more about the experience of gay men, but it was refreshing and surprising to see this focus on the women, the wives. I think my dumbass had wrongly assumed gay men would maybe marry lesbians to mask their orientations, but the couples depicted here sort of showed a sad life for the female counterpart.
I am not sure I liked Yan Hua or the end of the book. Maybe it’s the social justice warrior/snowflake inside of me, but I wanted things to end in a better light, but I understand where it all comes from. I’m looking forward to picking more stuff by Tang, this was beautiful and I loved the simple yet gorgeous writing. 4.5 stars rouned down because the ending/point of it all MADE SENSE but didn't work 100% for me.
A quote that I liked for no reason lol:
“Gone were the days when sweatshop workers had to fuss with their MetroCards on the subway (many had moved to Brooklyn after 9/11), counting minutes and searching the windows for signs of their stop. They discovered the pleasure of a highway without traffic, of headphones in the ears and a window with a Gowanus view. A woman’s leg nudged her neighbor’s, asking him for more space, and sometimes this action stirred up a conversation. A pleasurable and banal discussion about the price of meat, the blandness of watermelon, the sales at Macy’s.”
This was a fantastic reading experience. I loved the writing and the characters and just the story overall. We start in a cinema theater in China that has the same movies all day, every day, because it’s not really a place to watch films. It’s a little utopia for (married) gay men to exist without judgment. The story centers around two women, Bao Mei and Yan Hua, and a gay man named Old Second. It goes from rural China, to Chinatown in NYC, to a contemporary Chinatown still dealing with the racism that emerged during the pandemic. The hardships and resilience of Chinese immigrants gets a lot of focus, which I really liked.
I thought the choice to follow mostly Bao Mei and Yan Hua was an interesting one. I was mostly expecting to learn more about the experience of gay men, but it was refreshing and surprising to see this focus on the women, the wives. I think my dumbass had wrongly assumed gay men would maybe marry lesbians to mask their orientations, but the couples depicted here sort of showed a sad life for the female counterpart.
I am not sure I liked Yan Hua or the end of the book. Maybe it’s the social justice warrior/snowflake inside of me, but I wanted things to end in a better light, but I understand where it all comes from. I’m looking forward to picking more stuff by Tang, this was beautiful and I loved the simple yet gorgeous writing. 4.5 stars rouned down because the ending/point of it all MADE SENSE but didn't work 100% for me.
A quote that I liked for no reason lol:
“Gone were the days when sweatshop workers had to fuss with their MetroCards on the subway (many had moved to Brooklyn after 9/11), counting minutes and searching the windows for signs of their stop. They discovered the pleasure of a highway without traffic, of headphones in the ears and a window with a Gowanus view. A woman’s leg nudged her neighbor’s, asking him for more space, and sometimes this action stirred up a conversation. A pleasurable and banal discussion about the price of meat, the blandness of watermelon, the sales at Macy’s.”
January 13, 2024
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early review copy!
I’ve seen Cinema Love often described in reviews as ‘soft’ and ‘tender’ and I would agree - it feels delicate. It’s ornate crystal that could easily shatter. But it has a lot of power, hidden power, and the end result is a smart and touching look at a cinema in rural China in the ‘80s that was a cruising spot for (mostly) closeted married men. And the women they married. And the ways these women deal with their men deceiving them.
Were the deceits malicious? It can be a hard question answer.
This is a novel that deals in shades of gray.
I was reminded of last year’s Monstrilio as far as the writing style went: short and punchy and so smart, exploring the lives of characters the reader might not necessarily love but can understand. Whereas that book was horror (or, at least, horror-adjacent), Cinema Love is not so grotesque and fits best in the literary genre.
What a great start to my reading year!
I’ve seen Cinema Love often described in reviews as ‘soft’ and ‘tender’ and I would agree - it feels delicate. It’s ornate crystal that could easily shatter. But it has a lot of power, hidden power, and the end result is a smart and touching look at a cinema in rural China in the ‘80s that was a cruising spot for (mostly) closeted married men. And the women they married. And the ways these women deal with their men deceiving them.
Were the deceits malicious? It can be a hard question answer.
This is a novel that deals in shades of gray.
I was reminded of last year’s Monstrilio as far as the writing style went: short and punchy and so smart, exploring the lives of characters the reader might not necessarily love but can understand. Whereas that book was horror (or, at least, horror-adjacent), Cinema Love is not so grotesque and fits best in the literary genre.
What a great start to my reading year!
June 26, 2024
‘Cinema Love’ is a book that is my personal reminder of the power of fiction. It covers over 30 years, traveling from rural China to New York City’s Chinatown. For the past few days, I have felt like I’ve been living life alongside these characters and learning more about the connected issues they face, specifically from their time in America.
We follow a crew of characters individually but also in the form of couples and see their connection to the Worker’s Cinema, a rundown theater in rural China that was a haven for gay men to find love and privacy. But when one of the men’s wives discovers his affair, a series of events unravel, closing down the Cinema and permanently altering their lives. This sets them to relocate to build anew in America.
I would still have been intrigued if we had only followed the men but following their wives added another layer, putting this story in its own lane.
An immersive story that was heartbreaking, complicated, emotional, and raw. My favorite books touch on the grey areas in life, and this did that. I felt for every character. I don’t think there are any true villains or victims, as everyone has caused some pain and been on the receiving end. All our actions have repercussions, as we don’t exist in a vacuum. As much as you understand and empathize with the men, you also feel for the unfortunate situations the women have been put in.
It’s torturous to have to call a place home where you feel unsafe, and this is a reminder of the power of safe spaces and community, as seen with the theatre and the existence of Chinatown.
The men go from feeling unsafe in China due to hiding their identity and desire to feeling unsafe in America due to racism and the difficulties of Chinese immigration. The women face the same struggles with immigration but with the compound of navigating their loveless marriages. We see how they find ways to survive, as it is difficult to shake old memories.
Despite everything, I still felt there was a lot of love in the story, and if anything, it depicted the multifaceted ways love can be shown under immense distress, as it's hard to care for others when you are in survival mode.
This story is just as great as its cover—and it’s a debut! I highly recommend it; this was stellar.
We follow a crew of characters individually but also in the form of couples and see their connection to the Worker’s Cinema, a rundown theater in rural China that was a haven for gay men to find love and privacy. But when one of the men’s wives discovers his affair, a series of events unravel, closing down the Cinema and permanently altering their lives. This sets them to relocate to build anew in America.
I would still have been intrigued if we had only followed the men but following their wives added another layer, putting this story in its own lane.
An immersive story that was heartbreaking, complicated, emotional, and raw. My favorite books touch on the grey areas in life, and this did that. I felt for every character. I don’t think there are any true villains or victims, as everyone has caused some pain and been on the receiving end. All our actions have repercussions, as we don’t exist in a vacuum. As much as you understand and empathize with the men, you also feel for the unfortunate situations the women have been put in.
It’s torturous to have to call a place home where you feel unsafe, and this is a reminder of the power of safe spaces and community, as seen with the theatre and the existence of Chinatown.
The men go from feeling unsafe in China due to hiding their identity and desire to feeling unsafe in America due to racism and the difficulties of Chinese immigration. The women face the same struggles with immigration but with the compound of navigating their loveless marriages. We see how they find ways to survive, as it is difficult to shake old memories.
Despite everything, I still felt there was a lot of love in the story, and if anything, it depicted the multifaceted ways love can be shown under immense distress, as it's hard to care for others when you are in survival mode.
This story is just as great as its cover—and it’s a debut! I highly recommend it; this was stellar.
June 4, 2024
Tang’s writing is incredible, especially for a debut novel. this is objectively an excellent book and it’s hard to fault, but my personal enjoyment of it just wasn’t that high. I think I expected a different story than what was actually here - the first half of the book basically entirely focuses on ‘the wives’ when I wanted to see more of the men and what was going on behind the scenes there. will definitely keep the author on my radar!
June 27, 2024
Okay, so I said I'd finish this book like a month ago and I lied. Sorry. Life got in the way.
However, I'm glad I decided to keep reading despite the books slow start and taking huge breaks before picking it up again.
Literary fiction isn't something I usually read but when it's done well... it can really impact.
The story follows Old Second, Bao Mei, and Yan Hua as the three main narrators. Other characters like May also sometimes have a narrative voice throughout. Each character is fleshed out and well developed and I enjoyed following their journey's from beginning to end. Tang does a great job fleshing them out and really SHOWING their grief and trauma, slowly revealing it to the audience, rather than just telling them what happened.
However, my favourite part is seeing how all these characters, who at first seem to be random strangers, are connected to each other. It shows that people have more connections than they'd think. And it also provides new perspectives when the characters are working.
Finally, I want to talk about the setting. Tang just puts so much magic and effort into writing The Worker's theatre that it just became a character of its own. Same as East Broadway and Chinatown in New York City. Because of that, you feel quite connected to the characters as it's easy to visualize them in the settings.
However, I'm glad I decided to keep reading despite the books slow start and taking huge breaks before picking it up again.
Literary fiction isn't something I usually read but when it's done well... it can really impact.
The story follows Old Second, Bao Mei, and Yan Hua as the three main narrators. Other characters like May also sometimes have a narrative voice throughout. Each character is fleshed out and well developed and I enjoyed following their journey's from beginning to end. Tang does a great job fleshing them out and really SHOWING their grief and trauma, slowly revealing it to the audience, rather than just telling them what happened.
However, my favourite part is seeing how all these characters, who at first seem to be random strangers, are connected to each other. It shows that people have more connections than they'd think. And it also provides new perspectives when the characters are working.
Finally, I want to talk about the setting. Tang just puts so much magic and effort into writing The Worker's theatre that it just became a character of its own. Same as East Broadway and Chinatown in New York City. Because of that, you feel quite connected to the characters as it's easy to visualize them in the settings.
May 6, 2024
Finished copy by the publisher & ALC from @prhaudio
In this mesmerizing tale, Tang explores the different shades of love woven through the intertwined lives of its complex characters. From tender care to passionate desire, from confusion to jealousy, and even to the brink of destruction, CINEMA LOVE reminds us that no one is entirely innocent or evil—it's the choices we make and the burdens we carry that shape our destinies.
With its multi-POV narrative, which delves not only into the perspectives of closeted gay men in China but also into the lives of their wives, Tang skilfully paints a vivid and authentic portrait of imperfect yet relatable characters. As the story unfolds across different timelines, Tang effortlessly navigates the complexities of love, grief, and guilt, culminating in a finale that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned.
CINEMA LOVE is a powerful reminder that love defies simple categorization or expectations; it is as diverse and multifaced as the individuals who experience it. Amidst all the complexities and challenges, love remains a guiding force, inspiring acts of compassion and understanding.
-
rtc. But amazing writing and a very refreshing look about closeted gay men and their wives. I can’t believe this is a debut 🔥🔥🔥
In this mesmerizing tale, Tang explores the different shades of love woven through the intertwined lives of its complex characters. From tender care to passionate desire, from confusion to jealousy, and even to the brink of destruction, CINEMA LOVE reminds us that no one is entirely innocent or evil—it's the choices we make and the burdens we carry that shape our destinies.
With its multi-POV narrative, which delves not only into the perspectives of closeted gay men in China but also into the lives of their wives, Tang skilfully paints a vivid and authentic portrait of imperfect yet relatable characters. As the story unfolds across different timelines, Tang effortlessly navigates the complexities of love, grief, and guilt, culminating in a finale that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned.
CINEMA LOVE is a powerful reminder that love defies simple categorization or expectations; it is as diverse and multifaced as the individuals who experience it. Amidst all the complexities and challenges, love remains a guiding force, inspiring acts of compassion and understanding.
-
rtc. But amazing writing and a very refreshing look about closeted gay men and their wives. I can’t believe this is a debut 🔥🔥🔥
May 4, 2024
The synopsis of this book really appealed to me. A story spanning decades, from China to the US, dealing with the fallout of people who attended the Worker’s Cinema, a cruising place for gay men in rural China. The glimpses into gay life in rural China in the 80s were super interesting. I liked seeing the connection between the men who found refuge in the theater and the people who ran the space.
This book ends up following more characters than just Old Second and Bao Mei who are mentioned in the synopsis. All of the characters are connected and it does make sense why their stories are being told… However, at times it felt more like a collection of stories rather than a full novel. There were so many large time jumps or important scenes that happened off page that I felt like I wasn’t getting the full picture of these people’s lives.
I’m definitely open to reading more from Jiaming Tang in the future. I enjoyed the explorations of queerness, immigrant communities, and the complicated relationships that exist throughout decades.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book ends up following more characters than just Old Second and Bao Mei who are mentioned in the synopsis. All of the characters are connected and it does make sense why their stories are being told… However, at times it felt more like a collection of stories rather than a full novel. There were so many large time jumps or important scenes that happened off page that I felt like I wasn’t getting the full picture of these people’s lives.
I’m definitely open to reading more from Jiaming Tang in the future. I enjoyed the explorations of queerness, immigrant communities, and the complicated relationships that exist throughout decades.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
June 2, 2024
2.5/5
I came to this book for the queer Chinese cinema. For the first quarter to arguably even half of this book, that is what I got. Unfortunately for me, the narrative increasingly got bogged down by the "uncertain future in America," which I know far more about and ultimately find far less interesting. It would have been fine if there had been more of an exploration of queer Chinese American life, but instead there was the groaning and often repetitive life of the wives alternatively going through cycles of trauma, guilt, and bodily decay, which loses some of its visceral impact upon the seventh or eighth time an emotion is characterized as a belch and yet another character's mouth is described as rotting. Throw in some rather unclear timelines and all too often glib treatment of the COVID pandemic at the very end, and I found myself losing track of both the characters and the narratives that, for me, had started with such promise. I don't deny the histories that informed this book, or the importance of carrying such stories forward. I do, however, question the way in which this was advertised, as well as the high average rating. In any case, librarian privileges allowed me to get a hold of this as quickly as I did, and reviewing it on the first day of (in the US) Pride Month still feels good. I'm just hoping that starting the reading month on a middling point means I can only go up from here.
I came to this book for the queer Chinese cinema. For the first quarter to arguably even half of this book, that is what I got. Unfortunately for me, the narrative increasingly got bogged down by the "uncertain future in America," which I know far more about and ultimately find far less interesting. It would have been fine if there had been more of an exploration of queer Chinese American life, but instead there was the groaning and often repetitive life of the wives alternatively going through cycles of trauma, guilt, and bodily decay, which loses some of its visceral impact upon the seventh or eighth time an emotion is characterized as a belch and yet another character's mouth is described as rotting. Throw in some rather unclear timelines and all too often glib treatment of the COVID pandemic at the very end, and I found myself losing track of both the characters and the narratives that, for me, had started with such promise. I don't deny the histories that informed this book, or the importance of carrying such stories forward. I do, however, question the way in which this was advertised, as well as the high average rating. In any case, librarian privileges allowed me to get a hold of this as quickly as I did, and reviewing it on the first day of (in the US) Pride Month still feels good. I'm just hoping that starting the reading month on a middling point means I can only go up from here.
July 19, 2024
3.5
It's been a while since I finished a book and wrote a proper review. I haven't been able to read much this year, lost between the demands of life and temptations of binge watching. My reading list has been haphazard, littered with many DNFs and books that I took too long to read. I intend to rectify this grave error and pacify the Gods of Goodreads who keep throwing disapproving glances every time I open the app (which works so well on iPhone but is an absolute disaster on Android - snobs!).
I came across Cinema Love while browsing the Pride Month collection at the local library (thank you MoCo librarians!), and the blurb drew me in with its promise of an intriguing queer story set in rural China. I do not expect much from diaspora fiction usually, as they revolve around time-worn themes and usually succumb to inauthentic tropes while portraying the homeland. Cinema Love was a true surprise in this sense because the portions set in China do not ring false at all, and they are grounded in an emotional authenticity that is lacking in the American chapters. The writer sets the story in China without stuffing it with too many details, and that brave choice has really paid off in the utterly convincing Chinese chapters depicting the alienation of queer men (the story doesn't feature any queer women).
Old Second and Shun-Er, lovers in an industrial town and surprised by the fact of their love that transpired thanks to an old movie theater, hang on to each other to survive a relentlessly cruel world that labels them sissies, a hopelessly bleak world where they can never express their true selves. Shun-Er is married, and complications arise in the form of his wife, Yan Hua, who is hurt by the rejection from her otherwise caring husband. Interestingly, Cinema Love is as much about the turmoil, indignation, and silent fury of the wives of gay men as much as it is about the loneliness, heartbreak, and desolation of those very men. Silent furies bubble up to swallow the movie theater, robbing the gay men of their only haven and claiming some lives in the process.
The protagonists somehow conveniently all end up in New York, where they struggle as blue collar immigrants, counting pennies and drowning in homesickness. While the author's love for Chinatown is very evident in these chapters, the Chinatown portion should have been a different novel altogether. While the Chinese portions brim with anticipation and offer unexpected delights, the Chinatown portions are overlong and drenched in forced melancholy. It was not very convincing that some of the characters who were barely scraping together an existence in rural china were able to make their way across to ... New York ... on a boat (??!??) halfway across the world. The migration on the boat is not exactly described and it is unclear whether they traveled to a different country to take a boat or whether they took the boat in China.
The hard labour forced upon the immigrants and their sheer poverty is transported to the reader effectively by descriptions of their quotidian lives and quiet fortitude. The protagonists (whose lives are in conflict) move around in the same city, but of course, the story must pass through decades (as literary novels love to) before they get to meet and resolve/escalate their central conflicts. Somehow the novel finds itself gravitating towards the pandemic era (why does anyone think it's a good idea to write about the pandemic btw? But at least here it's justified probably by depicting the anti-asian hatred) and eventually ends in a noncommittal, emotionally vague and vaguely climactic moment that appears to be the beginning of better times.
I loved the way the new arcs of the story unspooled from existing arcs, shooting out a new character or a nasty secret or an emotional tension that was buried there all along. Many of the conflicts of the novel were carved out of juicy, emotionally complex foundations where all parties have completely convincing motivations behind their actions, and it is very satisfying to read. The punishment doled out to Old Second by his parents for hugging a boy as a child is haunting, and it is one of the most powerful images that endure after my reading of the novel. I also loved that all the protagonists were realistically described as ugly at one point or the other, refusing courageously to take the easy route by making them pretty. Working class queer love is a rare intersection in literature, and it is further heightened by an immigrant angle here.
In the feverishly joyous initial sections of the novel, basking in its tenderness, I assumed that this would be a 5-star read. But, tragic events occur as expected, the characters move to America, and a different story emerges in which the characters live haunted by the shadows of their awful actions. A story that is significantly less exciting and exceptional, one that is a chore to read, and the reader goes from "can't wait to pick it up" to "can't wait to put this down" within the span of 50 pages. The story loses its unique sheen, and what a shame it is. The writer tries to mold an authentic love story and the rise and fall of Chinatown into one medium sized novel. I did not feel the gut punch when Chinatown fades into nothingness because it was never a source of any real joy to the characters here and nostalgia only works with pleasant memories. This should have been either a brief novella without any immigration involved or an expansive novel with more characters and a focus beyond the three protagonists with the canvas for a complete Chinatown novel. This ambition has the stamp of an American MFA degree all over it, and I regret the way these degrees cast our writers into cookie cutter molds.
All that said, I will cherish Cinema Love for the exquisite tenderness and unfussy execution.
It's been a while since I finished a book and wrote a proper review. I haven't been able to read much this year, lost between the demands of life and temptations of binge watching. My reading list has been haphazard, littered with many DNFs and books that I took too long to read. I intend to rectify this grave error and pacify the Gods of Goodreads who keep throwing disapproving glances every time I open the app (which works so well on iPhone but is an absolute disaster on Android - snobs!).
I came across Cinema Love while browsing the Pride Month collection at the local library (thank you MoCo librarians!), and the blurb drew me in with its promise of an intriguing queer story set in rural China. I do not expect much from diaspora fiction usually, as they revolve around time-worn themes and usually succumb to inauthentic tropes while portraying the homeland. Cinema Love was a true surprise in this sense because the portions set in China do not ring false at all, and they are grounded in an emotional authenticity that is lacking in the American chapters. The writer sets the story in China without stuffing it with too many details, and that brave choice has really paid off in the utterly convincing Chinese chapters depicting the alienation of queer men (the story doesn't feature any queer women).
Old Second and Shun-Er, lovers in an industrial town and surprised by the fact of their love that transpired thanks to an old movie theater, hang on to each other to survive a relentlessly cruel world that labels them sissies, a hopelessly bleak world where they can never express their true selves. Shun-Er is married, and complications arise in the form of his wife, Yan Hua, who is hurt by the rejection from her otherwise caring husband. Interestingly, Cinema Love is as much about the turmoil, indignation, and silent fury of the wives of gay men as much as it is about the loneliness, heartbreak, and desolation of those very men. Silent furies bubble up to swallow the movie theater, robbing the gay men of their only haven and claiming some lives in the process.
The protagonists somehow conveniently all end up in New York, where they struggle as blue collar immigrants, counting pennies and drowning in homesickness. While the author's love for Chinatown is very evident in these chapters, the Chinatown portion should have been a different novel altogether. While the Chinese portions brim with anticipation and offer unexpected delights, the Chinatown portions are overlong and drenched in forced melancholy. It was not very convincing that some of the characters who were barely scraping together an existence in rural china were able to make their way across to ... New York ... on a boat (??!??) halfway across the world. The migration on the boat is not exactly described and it is unclear whether they traveled to a different country to take a boat or whether they took the boat in China.
The hard labour forced upon the immigrants and their sheer poverty is transported to the reader effectively by descriptions of their quotidian lives and quiet fortitude. The protagonists (whose lives are in conflict) move around in the same city, but of course, the story must pass through decades (as literary novels love to) before they get to meet and resolve/escalate their central conflicts. Somehow the novel finds itself gravitating towards the pandemic era (why does anyone think it's a good idea to write about the pandemic btw? But at least here it's justified probably by depicting the anti-asian hatred) and eventually ends in a noncommittal, emotionally vague and vaguely climactic moment that appears to be the beginning of better times.
I loved the way the new arcs of the story unspooled from existing arcs, shooting out a new character or a nasty secret or an emotional tension that was buried there all along. Many of the conflicts of the novel were carved out of juicy, emotionally complex foundations where all parties have completely convincing motivations behind their actions, and it is very satisfying to read. The punishment doled out to Old Second by his parents for hugging a boy as a child is haunting, and it is one of the most powerful images that endure after my reading of the novel. I also loved that all the protagonists were realistically described as ugly at one point or the other, refusing courageously to take the easy route by making them pretty. Working class queer love is a rare intersection in literature, and it is further heightened by an immigrant angle here.
In the feverishly joyous initial sections of the novel, basking in its tenderness, I assumed that this would be a 5-star read. But, tragic events occur as expected, the characters move to America, and a different story emerges in which the characters live haunted by the shadows of their awful actions. A story that is significantly less exciting and exceptional, one that is a chore to read, and the reader goes from "can't wait to pick it up" to "can't wait to put this down" within the span of 50 pages. The story loses its unique sheen, and what a shame it is. The writer tries to mold an authentic love story and the rise and fall of Chinatown into one medium sized novel. I did not feel the gut punch when Chinatown fades into nothingness because it was never a source of any real joy to the characters here and nostalgia only works with pleasant memories. This should have been either a brief novella without any immigration involved or an expansive novel with more characters and a focus beyond the three protagonists with the canvas for a complete Chinatown novel. This ambition has the stamp of an American MFA degree all over it, and I regret the way these degrees cast our writers into cookie cutter molds.
All that said, I will cherish Cinema Love for the exquisite tenderness and unfussy execution.
May 13, 2024
An incredibly moving and captivating debut about Chinese American immigrants trying to make a life in New York and the community of gay men who frequent a cinema to find queer love outside of their marriages. Great on audio and a fantastic read. I look forward to more from this author and am OBSESSED with the book's cover! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!!
Read
August 7, 2025life is hard, wives call their husbands f*ggot, and gay sex smells like shit. there you go you've read the book.
indistinguishable characters, boring descriptions, and an aimless narrative sink what sounded like a fantastic premise.
indistinguishable characters, boring descriptions, and an aimless narrative sink what sounded like a fantastic premise.
March 9, 2025
I just know that this author has personal beef with mouth breathers. This story has a stronger focus on the women affected by their closeted husband's relationships than the husbands themselves, and the way their relationships decayed due to poverty and infidelity reflected the descriptions of unclean mouths the author was fond of.
I thought this was such an interesting picture of life for Chinese people in 1980s America. The Queer culture of the Worker's Cinema, it's destruction and the decisions one character made became the catalyst for our characters finding a new home in America. I thought the writing was beautiful, and even at slow points in the story, I was invested.
I thought this was such an interesting picture of life for Chinese people in 1980s America. The Queer culture of the Worker's Cinema, it's destruction and the decisions one character made became the catalyst for our characters finding a new home in America. I thought the writing was beautiful, and even at slow points in the story, I was invested.
June 18, 2024
3.5⭐️ The synopsis of this book appealed to me. I have never read a story quite like this and I enjoyed reading the perspectives of both the men and their wives. I just thought more of the story would be focused on the wives.
May 5, 2024
One of the loveliest books I've read in a while, Cinema Love is almost aggressive in its tenderness. It’s a love letter to queer spaces (and the importance of protecting them), oft-neglected immigrant narratives, and Manhattan’s Chinatown. This book is haunting and not always easy to read, but somehow impossible to put down - I’ll be recommending it all summer.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dutton for the ARC <3
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dutton for the ARC <3
July 4, 2024
I was surprised by how beautiful the writing is in this debut novel, especially given the general description about a decrepit theater where men hooked up clandestinely. That sounds so judgmental and it is. But at first blush, the introduction very much describes the place, one that is often placed underground and at the margins.
The writing is gorgeous. The language is lush and evocative. The plotting is intricate and smart.
While I see why the perspectives of Bao Mei and Yan Hua, the women, became the primary focus later in the book—it serves the story, I wanted to read more about Old Second, Hen Bao, and perhaps Kevin. I think the men in this book, given the subject, matter more than the women.
These characters have experiences that are wrenching, tender, and bittersweet. Due to their innate nature, the longing, desire, and pain that the men endure are the most compelling. The women are described in very humanizing light given their choices and responses to life.
I appreciate how Tang captured the poverty, hardships, and struggles that new Chinese immigrants endure in the U.S. and in New York specifically. The hidden economy and suffering have persisted since Chinese first started coming to these lands in the mid-1800s.
The climax is a bit under-stated but it "made sense" given how this story is presented.
I would definitely read more from this author. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is a debut given the beauty of the storycrafting and writing.
(There is one author blurb, on the inside back flap, that does a disservice to this title because that author wrote an irresponsible piece of work…eh hem.)
Quotes:
Together, Bao Mei and her dreams remember everything. Not just her own memories, but those of others. Asleep, her body witches and so does her mouth—choking on silent words as they fail to enter waking life….
But before that, she always reaches for the most important item of all: an ancient ring of keys older than grief.
Theirs is the kind of love that can change the weather. A radio forecast predicting rain switches its tune the moment Old Second sees Shun-Er. Clouds part, a breeze picks up, and the sun become so yellow it looks delicious….
And of course there was the Workers’ Cinema. The place where they first met, and where love became more than words and gentle touching. It was a thickness in the air. A taste, too: of sweat and saliva, blood in the mouth.
“…People like us, we’re not a problem until they catch us doing something. Then it’s blood and fury and all eighteen levels of hell. My theory is that Father was mad at my brother for confirming something he already knew. Because he wailed while hitting me. He wailed and beat his chest like he was at a funeral.”
All the theater men sought was the salt of another man’s palms.
“Uneducated people don’t have words to record their hurt. That’s why they have children. Their children are their memories.”
Did not causing her pain make up for not giving her pleasure?
It’s what they’ve come to America for. Not just a little money, but lots of it, the easy kind too. Tired of wielding shovels and sledgehammers, the immigrants search for jobs where the heaviest tool is a wok….
She smiled the stench of grease soaked on a napkin, and something else. Something she recognized but didn’t receive from her husband.
Desire.
May’s ignorance was the worst kind possible: that which belonged to the lucky.
Beyond the window was Chinatown. East Broadway with its lackluster reproductions of the county May left behind. There was the market street packed with fish- and fruit-mongers. Behind them hid a group of stores so secretive, they lacked names. Not that they needed them. Locals could identify each by sight and gossip….
Opened by, and marketed toward, the new Chinese, they sold nothing outside the realm of the useful….
Kevin and Yan Hua released their anger into the air, causing the mall that usually smelled of plastic to be infused with the stench of secrets.
…Yan Hua discovered that the pain that used to make her cry was nothing but syllables. A collection of sounds that came out of a mouth too numb to realize it was smiling.
The writing is gorgeous. The language is lush and evocative. The plotting is intricate and smart.
While I see why the perspectives of Bao Mei and Yan Hua, the women, became the primary focus later in the book—it serves the story, I wanted to read more about Old Second, Hen Bao, and perhaps Kevin. I think the men in this book, given the subject, matter more than the women.
These characters have experiences that are wrenching, tender, and bittersweet. Due to their innate nature, the longing, desire, and pain that the men endure are the most compelling. The women are described in very humanizing light given their choices and responses to life.
I appreciate how Tang captured the poverty, hardships, and struggles that new Chinese immigrants endure in the U.S. and in New York specifically. The hidden economy and suffering have persisted since Chinese first started coming to these lands in the mid-1800s.
The climax is a bit under-stated but it "made sense" given how this story is presented.
I would definitely read more from this author. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is a debut given the beauty of the storycrafting and writing.
(There is one author blurb, on the inside back flap, that does a disservice to this title because that author wrote an irresponsible piece of work…eh hem.)
Quotes:
Together, Bao Mei and her dreams remember everything. Not just her own memories, but those of others. Asleep, her body witches and so does her mouth—choking on silent words as they fail to enter waking life….
But before that, she always reaches for the most important item of all: an ancient ring of keys older than grief.
Theirs is the kind of love that can change the weather. A radio forecast predicting rain switches its tune the moment Old Second sees Shun-Er. Clouds part, a breeze picks up, and the sun become so yellow it looks delicious….
And of course there was the Workers’ Cinema. The place where they first met, and where love became more than words and gentle touching. It was a thickness in the air. A taste, too: of sweat and saliva, blood in the mouth.
“…People like us, we’re not a problem until they catch us doing something. Then it’s blood and fury and all eighteen levels of hell. My theory is that Father was mad at my brother for confirming something he already knew. Because he wailed while hitting me. He wailed and beat his chest like he was at a funeral.”
All the theater men sought was the salt of another man’s palms.
“Uneducated people don’t have words to record their hurt. That’s why they have children. Their children are their memories.”
Did not causing her pain make up for not giving her pleasure?
It’s what they’ve come to America for. Not just a little money, but lots of it, the easy kind too. Tired of wielding shovels and sledgehammers, the immigrants search for jobs where the heaviest tool is a wok….
She smiled the stench of grease soaked on a napkin, and something else. Something she recognized but didn’t receive from her husband.
Desire.
May’s ignorance was the worst kind possible: that which belonged to the lucky.
Beyond the window was Chinatown. East Broadway with its lackluster reproductions of the county May left behind. There was the market street packed with fish- and fruit-mongers. Behind them hid a group of stores so secretive, they lacked names. Not that they needed them. Locals could identify each by sight and gossip….
Opened by, and marketed toward, the new Chinese, they sold nothing outside the realm of the useful….
Kevin and Yan Hua released their anger into the air, causing the mall that usually smelled of plastic to be infused with the stench of secrets.
…Yan Hua discovered that the pain that used to make her cry was nothing but syllables. A collection of sounds that came out of a mouth too numb to realize it was smiling.
December 10, 2023
A stunning debut work, "Cinema Love" traverses decades in time and continents, focusing on the lingering impacts a lone theater in Mawei, China continues to have.
Beginning in post-Communist China, Old Second grows up knowing the feelings he has for other men is forbidden, and his carelessness one evening coupled with a younger sibling's loose tongue causes his family to shun him. This is also the time that young Bao Mei comes of age, and she sees her older brother similarly struggle, until he passes away too early; for her, this is motivation enough to begin working at the Mawei Theater, a place that most civilians avoid and whisper about as it becomes one of the few places queer Chinese men can meet. When the theater is eventually taken over and many of its visitors beaten or killed, these individuals are forced to pivot - many of them fleeing to New York and finding shelter in the growing Chinese communities in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Decades later, Bao Mei is married to Old Second in loveless, but not careless, marriage - but each of their histories comes to light as individuals from their past make themselves known in the present. We meet Yan Hui, a woman who previously entered the Mawei Theater in search of her then husband, who also carries secrets from her past, and the complicated friendships and relationships that have been formed emerge.
There is so much that's been packed into this deceptively short novel: the raw, glaring shame and deceit that these queer men went through; the ways these secrets and deception impacted their wives; the burden and struggle of the immigrant experience; and the all-encompassing feelings of loneliness and companionship. Each of these characters is carefully, lovingly built up - flawed, but not without their merits and moments of redemption. The ever-changing relationships they have with each other, and the complex, often conflicting ways, they express their feelings ties this novel together; this is clearly a character-driven novel at its core. Tang's writing is beautiful and descriptive, sometimes too much so; he's able to transport readers to the dark, dingy theater in Mawei right to the decrepit, broken-down apartments littered across Chinatown, New York.
Very much a recommended read when "Cinema Love" is published in May 2024!
Thank you Penguin Group for the advance copy of this novel!
Beginning in post-Communist China, Old Second grows up knowing the feelings he has for other men is forbidden, and his carelessness one evening coupled with a younger sibling's loose tongue causes his family to shun him. This is also the time that young Bao Mei comes of age, and she sees her older brother similarly struggle, until he passes away too early; for her, this is motivation enough to begin working at the Mawei Theater, a place that most civilians avoid and whisper about as it becomes one of the few places queer Chinese men can meet. When the theater is eventually taken over and many of its visitors beaten or killed, these individuals are forced to pivot - many of them fleeing to New York and finding shelter in the growing Chinese communities in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Decades later, Bao Mei is married to Old Second in loveless, but not careless, marriage - but each of their histories comes to light as individuals from their past make themselves known in the present. We meet Yan Hui, a woman who previously entered the Mawei Theater in search of her then husband, who also carries secrets from her past, and the complicated friendships and relationships that have been formed emerge.
There is so much that's been packed into this deceptively short novel: the raw, glaring shame and deceit that these queer men went through; the ways these secrets and deception impacted their wives; the burden and struggle of the immigrant experience; and the all-encompassing feelings of loneliness and companionship. Each of these characters is carefully, lovingly built up - flawed, but not without their merits and moments of redemption. The ever-changing relationships they have with each other, and the complex, often conflicting ways, they express their feelings ties this novel together; this is clearly a character-driven novel at its core. Tang's writing is beautiful and descriptive, sometimes too much so; he's able to transport readers to the dark, dingy theater in Mawei right to the decrepit, broken-down apartments littered across Chinatown, New York.
Very much a recommended read when "Cinema Love" is published in May 2024!
Thank you Penguin Group for the advance copy of this novel!
October 2, 2025
3.5
An objectively good book, but I felt the focus was less on the gay men in rural China and more on their wives? Not necessarily a bad thing, I was just expecting something more queer I guess 😭
An objectively good book, but I felt the focus was less on the gay men in rural China and more on their wives? Not necessarily a bad thing, I was just expecting something more queer I guess 😭
June 28, 2024
what the fuck
November 23, 2023
Cinema Love is a novel spanning decades that explores the relationships of gay men, and their wives in China and in Chinatown in New York. Old Second and Bao Mei live in New York City, in an ever changing Chinatown, but they first met in China, at the Workers' Cinema that had become a cruising spot for gay men and where Bao Mei worked selling the tickets. After tragedy there, they married and came to America, but the ghosts of the past followed, and in modern day New York during the pandemic, they must face it all.
This is a sweeping, epic novel that captures the everyday sadnesses and intimacy of human relationships, particular those born out of forbidden circumstances. It is told from multiple perspectives, weaving together a range of central characters with entangled relationships and showing the choices that can have great impact on each other. Particularly intriguing is the way that the book explores both gay men and the women they marry, and the complexities of love and human emotion that can occur in different circumstances. The cinema, though central to the plot, doesn't actually feature that much, making it almost feel like a lost ideal, despite being run down, and throughout the book there's a constant yearning for things, people and places.
This kind of decades-spanning epic novel can be confusing or meandering, but in Cinema Love Tang uses vividly-drawn characters to hold the heart of the novel together and tells an unseen story of both gay and immigrant experience.
June 11, 2024
First things first, Tang's writing is exceptionally moving and raw. The feelings of every character are fully on display to the point that there's a rawness to the story that I had to walk away from a couple of times. It's not a happy story, not even a hopeful one, but it has a humanity in its realness that I can appreciate despite not enjoying it.
The story is pretty much a warning that a life lived in fear and in hiding leads to nothing but memories and sadness, which is a powerful message but a very depressing read. So while I can admire the work, I can't say I enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the powerful read!
The story is pretty much a warning that a life lived in fear and in hiding leads to nothing but memories and sadness, which is a powerful message but a very depressing read. So while I can admire the work, I can't say I enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the powerful read!
October 5, 2025
He understands that every sissy must endure this ten seconds of wanting to speak, of wanting to release the pressure weighing on his spirit.
3.5 stars. Even though it sometimes felt aimless, and the tone was more melancholy than I usually enjoy, I ended up really liking it. Especially for the intimacy and ugliness in the way it explores its characters. It felt so real, and overall, really tender. This is something of a queer epic, but it feels very casual. We're following a group of characters, most of them from humble beginnings in rural China. The Workers' Cinema is at the epicentre of their origins: for some of them, a haven where gay men cruised and found solace and love; for others, their wives, it's the symbol of their helplessness and anger and grief. The novel takes place over decades, from China to New York.
This was so interesting; the kind of slice of life that really digs into the characters, makes you commiserate with them. It made me feel helpless and sad at times, but I was really impressed with how it did so in a gentle, yet relentless way. It never lets up. Shun-Er, though we don't spend a lot of time with him, is such a great character. Reading about the life that Bao Mei and Old Second created in New York makes me happy and thoughtful and sad all at once. Those last chapters were brutal. And I'm so glad that this was the book it was, that it concentrated just as much on the horror of patriarchy and sexism as it did on homophobia and the search for queer joy. In another book, the wives wouldn't have gotten nearly as much page time.
And the writing... I don't know. I didn't always love it, but I did enjoy that it was so simple. And often really beautiful and expressive. I'm finding it difficult to put my thoughts about this into words, but I really like the way Alexis Hall puts it in his review. I wasn't as emotionally galvanised by this as I wanted or expected to be, but it did touch me, deeply.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Samantha Tan. This is the kind of book that COULD have been narrated by different narrators, but I think I like the choice to have a single person. The POVs weren't always clearly delineated, and there was a little bit of head-hopping. I didn't mind it as much as I usually do. This is one that I'll think about for some time to come.
“Ghosts don’t emigrate like people do.”
But the past does, Yan Hua thought.
August 24, 2024
I first encountered Jiaming Tang's debut, Cinema Love, at the John Murray Proof Party at the Durham Book Festival last year, which is also where I picked up my free proof copy. Tang memorably described the book as 'a tastefully horny epic', and pitched it as being centred on a cinema where gay men cruise for love in 1980s rural Fuzhou. None of this, for me, really captures what this book is about - although I do feel for Tang, as summing up your own work in a few lines is never easy! The focus of Cinema Love is not the cinema's clients but two women who were connected to them. Bao Mei is guided to the cinema by the ghost of her dead brother, who was a self-proclaimed 'sissy', and works in the box office there, proud to defend a safe space for other men like him. Yan Hua, meanwhile, is horrified to find out that her gentle husband Shun-Er is a regular client, and makes a decision that will define the rest of her life. Both women then emigrate to New York's Chinatown and witness its slow decline and gentrification right up to the present day.
Tang is an exceptional writer: his prose has a clarity that deletes any possibility of sentimentality, and he makes the dance through the heads of his group of characters look easy. Both Bao Mei and Yan Hua are sensitively written and satisfyingly complex. If anyone was shortchanged, it was, surprisingly, the men who sought 'cinema love'. Their stories fade out quickly in the face of Tang's determination to show what their wives suffered. I get why Tang thought this was a priority, but the book almost ends up going too far the other way: of the three most important gay male characters in Cinema Love, two are dead for almost the whole of the novel and the third, Old Second, very much slips into a supporting role after an emotional introduction. Nevertheless, an impressive debut, and a good one to read alongside Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman.
Tang is an exceptional writer: his prose has a clarity that deletes any possibility of sentimentality, and he makes the dance through the heads of his group of characters look easy. Both Bao Mei and Yan Hua are sensitively written and satisfyingly complex. If anyone was shortchanged, it was, surprisingly, the men who sought 'cinema love'. Their stories fade out quickly in the face of Tang's determination to show what their wives suffered. I get why Tang thought this was a priority, but the book almost ends up going too far the other way: of the three most important gay male characters in Cinema Love, two are dead for almost the whole of the novel and the third, Old Second, very much slips into a supporting role after an emotional introduction. Nevertheless, an impressive debut, and a good one to read alongside Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman.
January 5, 2025
4.5/5
given to me as a christmas gift from katherine <3
incredible debut novel. exciting to see how contemporary asian american literature doesn't have to be the same flat stories in different fonts but include queer narratives like this one.
the book is centered around the intersecting stories of gay men and their wives. the book is in 3 parts and begins in china at a cinema where these men cruise and meet their secret lovers. the other parts are set in chinatown once they immigrate to america with their wives, but continue to revisit their memories and interact with people they have at this cinema. i love how jiaming explores themes of deceit, revenge, hatred, forgiveness, grief, hazy boundaries of love in friendships/romance/marriages. what stuck out most about his writing is the motif of smells in this book. I like how the lingering smell of sex and its distinct notes are what is used to expose cheating husbands and their lovers. I love how this unfamiliar smell to these wives is what is so hurtful to one of the wives as it emphasizes an aspect of love that is missing from her marriage.
the author expertly weaves the stories of these characters together, creating a vibrant world within this book. i am so excited to read what else jiaming will produce. the only reason i don't give it a 5 is because i don't know why i wasn't compelled to jot down quotes from this book. what stood out most to me was the unique plot. i truly have never read a book like this before.
given to me as a christmas gift from katherine <3
incredible debut novel. exciting to see how contemporary asian american literature doesn't have to be the same flat stories in different fonts but include queer narratives like this one.
the book is centered around the intersecting stories of gay men and their wives. the book is in 3 parts and begins in china at a cinema where these men cruise and meet their secret lovers. the other parts are set in chinatown once they immigrate to america with their wives, but continue to revisit their memories and interact with people they have at this cinema. i love how jiaming explores themes of deceit, revenge, hatred, forgiveness, grief, hazy boundaries of love in friendships/romance/marriages. what stuck out most about his writing is the motif of smells in this book. I like how the lingering smell of sex and its distinct notes are what is used to expose cheating husbands and their lovers. I love how this unfamiliar smell to these wives is what is so hurtful to one of the wives as it emphasizes an aspect of love that is missing from her marriage.
the author expertly weaves the stories of these characters together, creating a vibrant world within this book. i am so excited to read what else jiaming will produce. the only reason i don't give it a 5 is because i don't know why i wasn't compelled to jot down quotes from this book. what stood out most to me was the unique plot. i truly have never read a book like this before.
February 6, 2025
Buon esordio che mescola tematiche intersezionali che abbracciano la migrazione cinese negli Stati Uniti, l’omosessualità, la questione femminile e le difficoltà del mondo del lavoro ad una narrazione corale con costanti cambi di punto di vista che arricchiscono le qualità avvincenti della storia che si dipana di volta in volta.
March 1, 2025
4.5 stars
This books is unlike any other queer book I have read. There is a large aspect of life in 1950s China which is something I know nothing about. The POV was told from older (50/60 year old) Chinese immigrants, and I rarely read books with an older narrative.
This books is unlike any other queer book I have read. There is a large aspect of life in 1950s China which is something I know nothing about. The POV was told from older (50/60 year old) Chinese immigrants, and I rarely read books with an older narrative.
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