Last of Her Name

by Mimi Lok

LAST OF HER NAME is an eye-opening story collection about the intimate, interconnected lives of diasporic women and the histories they are born into. Set in a wide range of time periods and locales, including 80s UK suburbia, WWII Hong Kong and urban California, LAST OF HER NAME features an eclectic cast of outsiders: among them, an elderly housebreaker, wounded lovers, and kung-fu fighting teenage girls.

"Last of Her Name is a mesmerizing and deeply felt debut that affirms all that is great about short fiction. Lok’s collection brings startling intimacy to her characters, all of them struggling with dislocation and belonging. “Woman in the Closet,” has to be considered a new classic. I can’t think of a collection that better speaks to this moment of global movement and collective rupture from homes and history, and the struggle to find meaning despite it all.”
— DAVE EGGERS, author of The Parade

“What a basket of jewels! Each of these stories is elegant, poignant and multi-faceted. A true pleasure.”
— GISH JEN, author of The Girl at the Baggage Claim

“A truly beautiful and wide ranging collection. There is love, longing, grief, displacement, endurance. And from the gut punch of the opening story to the wonderful novella that anchors the book, not a word is wasted. So many lines spoke directly in my ear: “Night after night they sleep, but rarely at the same time. Without knowing it they take turns watching each other.” A book to stay up with, a book that will make you not want to sleep..”
— PETER ORNER, author of Maggie Brown & Others

"Assured and keenly observed stories about the devastations—large and small—that transpire between people. Rendered in prose that's no-nonsense, darkly funny, and lovely all at once, Lok’s stories carry quiet but undeniable impact. This is a book that stays with you long after you've put it down. It makes you wonder, as good books should, what on earth is going on in each of our brains."
— RACHEL KHONG, author of Goodbye, Vitamin

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Asia, Asian American, Contemporary

221 pages, Paperback

First published October 22, 2019

About the author

Mimi Lok is the author of the story collection "Last of Her Name," to be published in October 2019 by Kaya Press. The title story was a finalist for the 2018 Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize. She is the recipient of a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award and an Ylvisaker Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Susan Atefat Arts and Letters Prize for nonfiction. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Nimrod, Lucky Peach, Hyphen, the South China Morning Post, and elsewhere. Mimi is also the executive director and editor of Voice of Witness, a human rights/oral history nonprofit she cofounded that amplifies marginalized voices through a book series and a national education program.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘She tells herself that somehow it will happen, it must happen: a time when she will be able to tell someone everything, and not want or fear anything.’

We move through life ricocheting off of one another, leaving a residue of the self on the lives of everyone we touch. Even if only in a miniscule way, our connections--or misconnections--reshape the thoughtscapes of the people around us. Mimi Lok has delivers an astonishing debut with Last of Her Name, a collection of short stories and a novella that all address these connections and our changing perceptions on others and ourselves that accrue over time. While the collection moves amongst various decades and locales--China, the UK and the US with Hong Kong often being a central place from which everything stems, the stories all revolve around a shared center of theme with each story less a permutation on the theme than another nuanced alcove of ideas upon it. A debut that sings with the precise language of a seasoned literary champion, Last of Her Name addresses the vague meeting points or distances between people, be it family ties, romance, generational gaps, or socio-economic class relations.

One of Lok’s most astonishing qualities is how the writing is so perfectly balanced on restraint. The storytelling is an allusive game of show-and-tell into each character’s lives where the unmentioned or passed over speak just as loudly as what we are shown. There is a sense of cognition just beyond the text that manages to be felt by the reader within the negative space of the narratives, and within this vague framework the heart of each story is found beating. Lok also allows each story to breathe and be occupied at perfect capacity. The stories are so splendidly succinct and perfectly tuned in this manner and many of them, such as the titular story in particular, cover a wide range of emotional territory that lesser hands would have bloated it to novel length in order to attempt an epic out of what Lok uncovers in less than 30 pages. Nothing feels excessive, yet nothing lacking all the same with even the shortest works (one is just over a single page) are so delicately balanced to keep the reader churning over the material for hours to come.

Just as much as the unspoken is equally important to the spoken, the negative space between characters becomes just as meaningful as their connections. This idea is most directly confronted in Bad Influence, a story concerning a moderately successful yet stagnant young woman during an abrupt one-night reunion of drinking with her absent brother as he continues to travel the world.

It didn’t occur to her at the time that her lack of regard for [the landscape] might have stemmed from the same cause as Nelson’s interest: it was where they had both grown up. In any case, Nelson’ preoccupation gave Mayling frequent opportunities to steal glances at him She found herself looking for signs of change rather than familiarity.

Both siblings are looking over the same surrounding of their childhood and the juxtaposition of their perception functions as an insight to each character’s lives while also revealing a chasm between the two of them: it is the mundane for her while it is a reflective retrospective for him. She is homebody still caring for the parents while he is a free-spirited globetrotter as an element of his charismatic and charming personality toward which she feels both animosity and affection. Two lines later Lok verbalizes her predominant theme that the chemistry of her characters is as much about the distances between them as it is the similarities and connections.

Through each story we see characters interacting in ways that make them reflect upon their own sense of self in relation to those around them. The story Last of Her Name rotates between the story of Karen, a young teenager in 1980’s UK dealing with a sexual assault froma classmate, with the life history of her mother who lived through the 1941 invasion of Hong Kong. The story highlights the individuality of each character while still lovingly knotting in family ties through touching and telling interactions. It is one of the most successful stories in the collection--certainly one ripe for academic anthologies--along with I Have Never Put My Hope In Any Other But Thee. This story also concerns a teenage daughter with a mother figure, except here the family ties are extended to step-mothers. Lok layers the narrative of a single afternoon where both character’s essence of being are further uncovered and examined by the other against a broader backdrop of their general history and perceptions of each other over the years. Like in most of the stories, nothing is an abrupt epiphany but rather a slow edging towards a deeper understanding that unlocks something new as well as reveals barriers and distances between the characters.

When there are epiphany moments, such as in A Reasonable Person, they are delivered in an abstract enough way to hint at a long-running subconscious grappling in order to make the moment feel earned. With Lok, much of the shape of each understanding is hidden in the unspoken and, much like the best of Lydia Davis stories, works like a creative thought prompt for the reader to consider the disparate, sundry details of each character and imagine what sort of life the character lived to arrive here at this point. While Wedding Night, which takes a more experimental approach to storytelling, spreads across a longer timeline to examine the relationship between two highly connected characters, stories like The Wrong Dave manage to earn the change-of-character turnabout through subtle yet effective fleeting moments. The latter story concerns miscommunication and missed opportunities and uses them as a way to inspect the way we create idealized versions of ourselves to present to other people and how the incongruity of our idealized selves and actual selves can lead to friction within our lives. Dave is living a half-lie in his email communications with Yi, a girl he briefly met at a wedding she crashed while drunk, but their conversations--mostly Yi reflecting on the death of her grandmother and her own struggle to find a will to live--and his attempts to reassure her and give advice cause him to pause and consider his own life and if he is also living a lie in his own waking reality. Her perspective on life causes him to reassess his own, and vice versa. Lok delicately balances time and introspective insights in a way that makes these stories work rather than feeling like a forced resolution.

There is also an element in The Wrong Dave that the connection for Dave is immediately intertwined with sexual and romantic feelings, where the connection of Yi is purely spiritual, and many of the male characters in the book tend to take their sense of self-esteem from their proximity to women. Lok looks at the ways a woman’s sense of self is frequently infringed upon by the men in their lives as they must devote so much of themselves to caring for the egos and well-being of the men. The teenage boy in the first story, for instance, has a bad family life and not many friends, so he finds a sense of self worth by sexually assaulting and intimidating Karen. Karen, in turn, begins to approach her own needs and sense of self as a reaction to the trauma of the incident and the lingering terror of him standing outside her bedroom window each night. In the final story we watch the young man’s self esteem go up and down based on the approval of his girlfriend, as well as the way he is dependent on his house cleaner and, secretly, the woman in the closet cleaning up after him and keeping him fed. The wife in A Reasonable Person has so much of her notion of happiness tied up in her marriage that when confronted with the idea of herself as an individual she plunges into an existential crisis. Interactions with other create a sort of mirror through which the character’s see into themselves--Jean-Paul Sartre would argue this is a disastrous, bad faith method to try and form an identity --and in all of them this is at the expense of women.

The final story of the collection, The Woman in the Closet, is worth the price of the book alone. It is a novella about Granny Ng, an older woman who feels she is a disruption and hindrance to her adult son’s life so she goes to live in a tent village before reaching dire circumstances that lead her to secretly live in the closet of a middle-class young professional man. Lok confronts class relations and generational relations in an exquisite and anxiety-ridden tale akin to Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite.

Granny Ng's greatest fear had once been that, the older she got, the more likely it was that she would be forgotten… Her second greatest fear was to be a burden, though that was sometimes the only guarantee of being remembered.

When you create your sense of identity through the interactions with others, your identity would crumble without the reinforcements of others around you. Growing old, growing irrelevant, and growing into obscurity are terrifying in this regard. In a collection that delves into family dynamics, the importance of your elders is seen not just as a handhold on heritage but as a reminder to love and remember them because they too are a living person with hopes, dreams and feelings. The casual decline of concern by the young man in the closing paragraphs are heartbreaking, with Granny Ng completely removed from her own story as the narration shifts focus from her to the young man and pushes her to the fringes. There is also the sense that class does this as well. Granny Ng reflects on the way the man has so much space he takes for granted, space that people such as herself and the others back in the tent city wish they could have. There is a beautiful message of community, shared resources and helping to uplift each other that gets blotted out in the shadows of professionals just trying to enhance their bank accounts and their allotted space in the narrative of life even if it means pushing those less fortunate into oblivion.

Across seven stories and one novella, Mimi Lok has created a masterful debut collection. Subtle and ponderous, these stories delicately unpack the human condition and looks at the juxtapositions between lives. This collection would be a great achievement for any author, and as a debut it is nothing short of magical. Lok reminds us that we are all in this together, and to remember that our connections reverberate through the lives of everyone we know. If we keep in mind the ways we affect one another hopefully we can all live in better harmony and understanding.

4.5/5

[Kiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the end the thing that stays with me is the craft. I'd sit for hours to listen to how Mimi Lok decided on what forms and what words to pull from ether these narratives, these characters that pierce and linger. Readers often rate the individual stories or comment that some are obviously better than others. That's a rare thing for me. As is my reaction to most collections, each one here is a vital element, with its own bittersweet, endearing, poignant quality; at thirty pages or two.

It's been a long time since I've so ably seen setting created through character work, whether it's a Chinese woman migrating to England after WWII or a grandmother moving far from Hong Kong Island in search of home. I loved how Lok managed to include and even make me feel the Cantonese in some stories although it's an English text.

I've had such intensely personal moments in some of these stories. Read it and let it echo in you long after you've turned the last page. Eternally grateful to Decentred Lit for giving me this pearl.

Bookstagram | Twitter

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another short story collection with strong female protagonists and variety. Although none are particularly plot driven in the sense that there is acute suspense that needs to be addressed through flipped pages, there is consistent tension and the curiosity it drives, accomplishing the same goal.

The last tale, a novella, gives us the improbable scenario of a homeless granny who becomes a squatter in a young professional man's home. In a closet (nights). For a year. And he doesn't notice. It's a perfect example of the subtle tension mentioned above because, while there is no threat to either owner or squatter, every day (and especially night, given bladders and a squatter's inability to access the bathroom) is a challenge that must be met and readers, of course, expect the status quo that establishes itself to get, um, un-quo'ed, so to misspeak.

It does.

The first story goes back and forth in time from mother to daughter, the elder an apparent Kung Fu master and the younger being stalked by the school creep. Catalysts all over the place, in other words, and Lok does not disappoint.

In addition to these bookending stories, we have six others, all lightly intriguing. An engaged guy suddenly exchanging emails with a drunk girl he had an encounter with a year earlier. Cold feet manifesting itself in the SEND button? Or a sister, successful by society's standards, entertaining her wander-the-world brother, home for only a night, and feeling such a tumult of emotions toward him that the reader is left to pick through the wreckage for meaning. A lot rides on the reader here, as each brings his or her own baggage when it comes to defining "success" and "happiness."

There's a whiff of Chekhov (one must always check the air when reading short stories) here, as Lok is not afraid of soft landings when it comes to her stories' endings. That is, in medias res, by definition applicable to the beginning of stories, can be used in its odd ways at the end, too. The story just... stops. Happy Hollywood ending sorts wail. Chekhovian sorts say, "Ah. Very nice. Very nice indeed. Now for a glass of kvas."

Overall, then, an enjoyable run of short fiction, and a writer to watch!

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first heard of Last of Her Name, its synopsis immediately caught my attention: “a collection about the intimate, interconnected lives of diasporic women and the histories they are born into.” I loved this premise: thinking about migration across time and place. Mimi Lok’s stories span WWII Hong Kong to 1980s England to 2000s California. Central to this collection is Hong Kong, and it made my heart full to find specific, familiar details.

Last of Her Name feels experimental, as Lok plays with spacing in one story, and with length throughout — the shortest story is less than two pages and the longest is a novella. Important themes were dislocation and human connection. What are the simultaneous closeness and distances that can arise between people - those who are intimate, strangers, separated by generations, by borders?

This book is subtle but you can feel Lok’s intentionality throughout it — she leaves the reader to figure out what stories mean, and what the links between the stories are. I loved some stories, but the subtlety also meant I struggled to connect with others.

The standout piece for me was the last story, the novella - “The Woman in the Closet.” Granny Ng, no longer welcome at her son and daughter-in-law’s home, tries to make a home in homeless camps and then eventually sneaks into a random house, where she lives in a man’s closet for a year. I would love to read longer works by Mimi Lok and you bet I’ll keep my eyes peeled for new writing by her.

Thank you Kaya Press for sending me a copy of this book! Be sure to check them out — they publish works by Asian and Pacific Islander diasporas!

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Gradually, she comes to see her mother differently. The familiar, comforting close-ups—fragments of a cheek, or a waist to wrap her arms around, or an arm to lean against—recede. What emerges in their place is a not entirely clear figure posing in a series of still lifes: a small, soft woman cutting vegetables or cooking dinner or washing up, hands hidden in dishes and soapy water."

When Kiki gives a book five stars and raves about it, you have to sit up and take due notice. Last of Her Name by Mimi Lok is one such book so I had high expectations of it but I still underestimated its brilliance. These elegantly constructed stories are mesmerising and alluring. They have an ethereal quality that is compounded by light and lyrical prose that effortlessly sings. Lok looks at characters who are trapped in a moment of dislocation, struck by the tide into uncertain and unknown waters, renewing older connections and forging newer ones as they navigate through bittersweet life.

Every single story is a gem but the novella, "The Woman in the Closet", is in a league of its own. I also loved the opening titular story which has a temporally shifting narrative. There is seriously astounding emotional depth, an adept mapping out of interiority and personal mindscapes. Lok privileges the unsaid over the said, silence over speech, subtlety over excess. Her language use incorporates quietude too. She never overplays her hand. Even in "Accident", more flash fiction than short story, she evokes moving images. In "Wedding Party", the fragmented text is not just for show. This is a truly magnificent collection.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[2TReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words unlock, wooed from their moorings; leave the finite, the solid.

I adore when writers of short stories are able to instantly pull me into the tale they are telling by using their characters. Characters that are snarky, strong, observant, human.

With quite clear, simple, and deliberate prose Lok makes us question as every page is turned, we question the character, what we just read, and what possibilities lie beyond the next page, and when a story ends and leaves us wanting more, wondering what happened, who did what, where they ended up, that's a good story.

In the relationships that inhabit these stories, there is a certain push and pull between the characters, why do this, why come here, do I need you, this, now?

The strength, will, and determination of her female characters shines through every story, even when they are suppressing a side of themselves that we have been made aware of, it is communicated in their interactions with those closest to them.


These stories spanning time and place and people are so human, the situations each character found themselves in had me wanting to jump into the pages and give a couple people some slaps.

God bless Granny Ng. The Woman in the Closet was by far my favourite story.

Read this collection.

[maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

i checked this out from the library almost a year ago. and then i kept it long past the due date after i exceeded the renewal limit. i love love the cover and this book has gone everywhere with me. i had it on the shelf in my dorm last year for a long time. we've gone to class and qb practice (and i think like 2 tournaments as well), the hospital, my new room, sona study waiting area 3e. everywhere. i think i've just grown very attached to this book for that reason alone but i will be honest; most of the stories in this collection were of little interest to me. still, i felt deeply obligated in some way to finish the book. so i have been trudging through it. and finally (!!!!) i have finished reading it.

i dunno, i kinda felt like i should've liked some of these more than i did, but like i said, most of the stories (especially the very short ones), didn't do much for me. i kinda liked the one about the brother and sister. there were a couple more that were okay. but, i thought the final novella was excellent. i love the woman in the closet. anyways overall this was okay im glad i read it

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stories from various times and places, where most characters have ties to Hong Kong. My takeaway from this book is, people are gritty as heck! I wish each of these short stories could be a full novel. Some short stories by other authors have a clear beginning, middle, and end (literally short stories), but Mimi Lok's stories feel like pages torn from a book, or excerpts from a NYT Modern Love column where the romantic interest is a hometown, a memory, or a protagonist's own strength. Multiple times I flipped the page and thought, Wait, that's it? But what happened to ___???

​It feels real, real, real, because most life experiences do not have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes there is no closure and wow, that hurts​.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every story in this collection, except for the last one, felt “meh” to me. But the last one was SO good that it made me love it.

[Jueria · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books I’ve read this year!!! Such an exquisite collection of short stories with really intriguing characters some of whom you just want to protect 😭 I didn’t want this book to end! Absolutely amazing work by Mimi Lok.

[Swetha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last of Her Name by Mimi Lok is a collection of seven stories and one novella. The opener is interwoven stories of a daughter, who is a fan of mou hap TV show to flashbacks of her mother who practices martial arts—a deeper dive unveils how the histories connect as the pair conquer their bullies. And wow the stories just get sharper as you read! Of course, I loved the final novella “The Woman in the Closet” which follows an elderly woman who choose homelessness and resorts to developing an invisible relationship with a stranger. A homage to securing identity in a world filled with place-based marginalities. Other favorites in this collection include: The Wrong Dave and I Have Never Put My Hope In Any Other But Thee.

Many of Mimi Lok thematic concerns are around: familial bonds, identity, alienation and the meaning of home. The stories cross physical borders from Hong Kong, UK to the US bringing forth cross-cultural relationships. To me, the beauty lies in the power of the quiet reflective narrative while no story focuses on character development or an emotionally driven plot. Another strength of the author is the ability to focus the narrative without extraneous prose. While there is a want to look for a finite closure, each story leaves just enough imagery to speculate.

Recommend for fans who connected with the atmosphere of Tokyo Ueno Station By Miri Yu and the depiction of generational divide in the film Farwell by Lulu Wang.

[Lanie Tankard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's my review in The Woven Tale Press:
https://www.thewoventalepress.net/201...

[Babs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! A beautifully written collection of short stories, each one leaves you thinking...

[Rucy Cui · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. My favorite short stories: The Wrong Dave, A Reasonable Person, and The Woman in the Closet

[Naomi]

Usually I struggle with collections of short stories bc they just don’t keep my attention but these were all so rich and pulled me in immediately, the through lines were there. Particularly enjoyed the first three stories and the last story very parasite-esque

[niko · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was such a neat collection of stories that told a lot of different stories, all with different meanings.

[Raz Scarlet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last of Her Name: ★★★★★
The Wrong Dave: ★★★
A Reasonable Person: ★★★
Accident: ★★★★
I Have Never Put My Hope In Any Other But Thee: ★★★★★
Wedding Night: ★★★
Bad Influence: ★★★★
The Woman in the Closet: ★★★★★
(4 stars)

[Zhuo Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent Saturday afternoon and evening finishing the book in one sit. What a collection!! Every story has its unique angle to paint different pictures about love and belongs. I really like the author's writing style of great description and narration at the same time. Each character has its uniqueness yet they all present the similarities at the same time. I feel very connected.

"Last of Her Name": the story was told by three different time frames about a woman's life - when she herself was a little girl, then a wife and then a mother.
"The Wrong Dave": this one is my favorite. Usually I am not a fan of stories told by exchanging letters. I do not like the intimacy showing on the paper. Yet the letters from the heroine touched my heart so much that I could not help re-reading her letters.
"A Reasonable Person" and "Accident" are really short. I feel they are not complete stories, but emotion splashing.
"I have Never Put My hope in Any Other But Thee": Honestly, I am not sure about the title. It seems very irrelevant to the story, which is about what happened on the way to the hospital between a stepmother and a daughter. The stepmother stopped by to get a present for her ailing husband o=in the hospital and they both stopped by at the art museum. Until very late they realized that the visiting hour was almost over.
"Wedding Night": this story is more like a poem or a song, with all the separate paragraphs on different pages.
"Bad Influence": a story about the love between siblings and the one guy's decision on the whole family.
"The Woman in the Closet": this is the most lengthy one in this collection and is a story about an old women who has nowhere to live. Her situation has kept changing after she met friends in tent park and eventually hid herself in a young guy's closet. It feels an adventure for me, yet the ending is really sad and very similar to the ending of "The Wrong Dave". The life's ordinariness eventually swallows us alive.

[lorisa salvatin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mimi Lok is the founder of Voice of Witness, and I
love all the work they do. When I found out that she wrote a book, one that centered around an array of female characters and their diasporic experiences, I was eager to read it. And it did not disappoint.

The stories are told simply, but I feel Lok paints alluring scenes with her words in all the right places. Though, I think it’s her characters that shine through the most, for me. Each one carrying their own story and quirks. That’s what I think I love about short stories, especially this particular collection: the great character-driven narrative. In fact, I think this is the collection that made me realize how much I really love short stories.

My favorite stories were “Wedding Night”, “The Woman In The Closet”, “The Wrong Dave”, and “A Reasonable Person”.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been peripherally following the Hong Kong protests and by chance this book came on my radar (how? where? I'm terrible at remembering where a book is recommended). My contemporary Chinese reading is pretty non-existent so this helped.

The first and last stories were the most memorable. Some in the middle were just a few pages long-- not bad but not long enough to stick with a reader. The settings are varied but include Hong Kong, the UK and the US. The final story is about a granny who becomes homeless and figures out a novel way to survive. Fans of the films Parasite and last year's Shoplifters will see a theme about inequality that we might not immediately think about.

These are well executed and readable short stories. Recommend.

[Ashwini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last of Her Name is the Chinese writer Mimi Lok's debut collection of short stories. I am so pleased that I persevered. I have to be honest, the first couple of stories didn't really capture my attention although I could relate to some of the immigrant experiences her characters have.

After the first two stories, I encountered "A Reasonable Person", which was strange and interesting.

However, the story that made the whole book worth it for me was "The Woman in the Closet"-- it is probably one of the best short stories I have EVER read. I was gripped and felt a range of emotions. I don't think I will ever forget that story.

Good one, Mimi Lok! Looking forward to reading more from you.

[Leanna Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional collection of short stories - from the beginning to end the details drew me in and I immediately saw my family, my friends. I had a bit of a cry when a minor character was named Mei as I had never seen my mother's name spelled out in print by anyone else before. (<- representation matters!) If you want to delve into Chinese current culture, this is fantastic place to start.
While I had some stories stick with me more than others, the final short story - The Woman in the Closet - will continue to haunt me. It is a masterpiece, and should be required reading regardless of your own cultural background.

[Lori]

Deeply disturbing and sad realism. Couldn’t put the book down and often had to because of how sad or disturbed I felt for the characters. Yet I had to finish the book. Agree with Eggers, the anchor story was a startling page turner on modern day dislocation and the changing nature of our social safety net.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much, I wish I could give it more stars. The stories are all so illuminating. The NYTimes reviewed and mentioned “...whether you are from China or the Chinese diaspora...”, but this book has nothing to do with China. It’s all Hong Kong, whether in Hong Kong itself or overseas Chinese in the US or UK with roots in Hong Kong. It’s brilliant and we need more books like this!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of lonely people in these stories. My favorite was the last one “the woman in the closet” which actually makes me want to give the whole collection 4 stars but really I was so-so on these stories overall.

[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The flip side of Crazy Rich Asians--a beautifully written book about real people and real lives.

[Zara · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

I was pleasantly surprised by this collection of short stories + the novella. I usually have a really hard time getting through short story collections as I'm never too sure how to pace myself with them. There was something about Lok's writing and themes that seamlessly flowed from one story to the next. Last of Her Name and Bad Influence were my favorite short stories, they were really memorable and Lok made the characters feel so alive in the matter of a few paragraphs. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to feel about The Woman In The Closet when I started it, but by the time I got further into it, I was hooked. Overall, I loved that this collection included a wide variety of time periods and locations but still managed to stay cohesive by telling stories of people from Hong Kong + Hong Kong diaspora.

This book also reminded me that there are so many wonderful hidden gems that can come from independent publishing. I should definitely take more chances on books from smaller indie presses. Kaya Press definitely has a collection that is worth checking out and they just turned 30 (:

[Jun Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was like watching a movie. You sit silently with a crowd of faceless readers in a dark room, waiting for the plot, feelings, and emotions to be unveiled. This book is a collection of Lok's short stories. What initially drew me to it was the familiarity of the scene- Hong Kong diasporas, the old narrow streets, the melancholic sentimentalisms. Each each piece of unrelated short story, Lok painted a picture of men and women, unrelated, pain-riddened or ecstatic, interested or uninterested in the fullness of life, wander through the darken navy blue sky of Hong Kong, London, or SF. The last story was the most stunning- an old Granny seeking the last flimsiness of comfort and security parasitizing in someone else's lodging. Nursing homes, aging, and loneliness is one of the themes of the book.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The highlights of the collection were the bookend stories, Last of Her Name and The Woman in the Closet. A five-star rating is more appropriate for just the two aformentioned stories.

Each story captures a fractal of some semblance of life, focusing on different strata of family, love, and transience. Some of the stories are told in more fragmented pieces, small scenes captured in paragraphs or sometimes just a sentence. Instead of verbosity, Lok opts for sublety, prompting thought and consideration that echoes between stories, ultimately invoking feelings/emotions both old and new.

(also every story features Chinese women as the main character which is cool)

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid short story collection focusing mostly on women dealing with cultural assimilation and dislocation. The title story is fantastic and there are a bunch of keepers in here, ranging from a young woman whose brother stops in for a two day visit after taking off for a year to a elderly woman who chooses to be homeless rather than be a burden and ends up living in a closet of a young man's house for a year. Most of the stories are subtle and supple, though some stay at a low simmer and never really achieve what Lok seems to be shooting for. Still, all in all, worth a read.