Gish Jen: Bad bad girl, 9781803513249, hardback, Granta Books,

Gish Jen's "Bad bad Girl" is definitly on my shelf of best books of the year!

Part memoir, part fictive,  she describes her troubled, almost abusive relationship with her mother  Loo Shu-hsin who came from a wealthy Shanghai banking family to study in the US for a PhD which was exceptional for women in the 1930-40. Instead, short of her degree, she marries a promising Chinese engineering student Chao-Pei, becomes a nationalized American and has five children, whom she all treats differently. Physical beatings are part of Chinese upbringing according to her parents  but her mother has it in for Gish who is smart, talks back and only gets criticism from her mother. "Bad, bad girl, you don't know how to talk" is her mothers standard phrase.  This remains the basis for their relationship until her mothers death during Covid, no matter how successful Gish becomes as an author or a loving mother of two children herself. 

It is a brilliant memoir, particularly since Gish chose a fictive conversation with her dead mother when looking back at her and her family's life going back to China up until her mother's death. My heart went out to her when she never gives up seeking approval or love from her mother only receiving glimps of it. Gish's life story will stay with me for a while, her honesty was heartwrenching to read when she recounts her troubled mother-daughter relationship. 5 stars from me.