Gish Jen has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators. The most-rated is The Resisters.
World and Town
Summary
Sixty-eight-year-old Hattie Kong, descendant of Confucius, daughter of an American missionary, has lived to see both her husband and her best friend die back-to-back in a single year: “It was like having twins…She got to book the same church with the same pianist for both funerals and did think she should have gotten some sort of twofer from the crematorium.” But two years later, it’s time for Hattie to start over. She moves to a small New England town where she is soon joined by a Cambodian American family and an ex-lover—now a retired neuroscientist—all of them looking for their own new lives. What Hattie makes of this situation and of the changing town of Riverlake—challenged as it is, in 2001, by fundamentalist Christians, struggling family farms, and unexpected immigrants—lies at the center of a novel that asks deep and absorbing questions about religion, home, and what “worlds” we make of the world. Moving, humorous, and broad-ranging, World and Town is rich in character and brilliantly evocative of its time and place. This is a masterful novel from one of our most admired writers.
©2010 Gish Jen (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Love Wife
Summary
Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family. Chinese-American Carnegie Wong and his Waspy wife Blondie have two adopted children of Asian descent, Lilly and Wendy. The girls are a handful, but they are nothing compared to Carnegie's mother. Mama Wong's dislike for Blondie is relentless, so much so that she introduces a Chinese woman named Lan to the household. When Lilly and Wendy begin to favor Lan over their white mother, Blondie clings ever more tightly to her biological son, Bailey. A powerful novel peppered with humor, The Love Wife is absolutely riveting from the first word to the last. The vocal talents of a highly-skilled, award-winning group of narrators make for an exquisite audio production.
©2004 Gish Jen (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
The Girl at the Baggage Claim
Summary
The Girl at the Baggage Claim is a provocative and important study of the different ideas easterners and westerners have about the self and society and what this means for current debates in art, education, geopolitics, and business. Never have East and West come as close as they are today, yet we are still baffled by one another. Is our mantra "To thine own self be true"? Or do we believe we belong to something larger than ourselves - a family, a religion, a troop - that claims our first allegiance? Gish Jen - drawing on a treasure trove of stories and personal anecdotes, as well as cutting-edge research in cultural psychology - reveals how this difference shapes what we perceive and remember, what we say and do and make - how it shapes everything from our ideas about copying and talking in class to the difference between Apple and Alibaba. As engaging as it is illuminating, this is a book that stands to profoundly enrich our understanding of ourselves and of our world. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Gish Jen (P)2017 Tantor
The Resisters
Summary
"The Resisters is palpably loving, smart, funny, and desperately unsettling. The novel should be required reading for the country both as a cautionary tale and because it is a stone-cold masterpiece. This is Gish Jen's moment. She has pitched a perfect game." (Ann Patchett) The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet: one part artificial intelligence, one part surveillance technology, and oddly human - even funny. The people: Divided. The angel-fair "Netted" have jobs, and literally occupy the high ground. The "Surplus" live on swampland if they're lucky, on water if they're not. The story: To a Surplus couple - he once a professor, she still a lawyer - is born a Blasian girl with a golden arm. At two, Gwen is hurling her stuffed animals from the crib; by 10, she can hit whatever target she likes. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league. When AutoAmerica rejoins the Olympics, though - with a special eye on beating ChinRussia - Gwen attracts interest. Soon she finds herself playing ball with the Netted even as her mother challenges the very foundations of this divided society. A moving and important story of an America that seems ever more possible, The Resisters is also the story of one family struggling to maintain its humanity and normalcy in circumstances that threaten their every value - as well as their very existence. Extraordinary and ordinary, charming and electrifying, this is Gish Jen at her most irresistible.
©2020 Gish Jen (P)2020 Random House Audio