About
the Author
Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in Vancouver's East Side, where she now lives with her husband. Her poetry, fiction and articles have appeared in a variety of magazines, including The Antigonish Review, The Claremont Review, Horsefly and Jasmine. She was a finalist in the Stephen Leacock Poetry Contest and is included in the poetry anthology From this New World.
The End of East was published in the New Face of Fiction program in 2007.
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The Book
A moving portrait of three generations of the Chan family living in Vancouver's Chinatown
Sammy Chan was sure she'd escaped her family obligations when she fled Vancouver six years ago, but with her sister's upcoming marriage, her turn has come to care for their aging mother. Abandoned by all four of her older sisters, jobless and stuck in a city she resents, Sammy finds herself cobbling together a makeshift family history and delving into stories that began in 1913, when her grandfather, Seid Quan, then eighteen years old, first stepped on Canadian soil.
The End of East weaves in and out of the past and the present, picking up the threads of the Chan family's stories: Seid Quan, whose loneliness in this foreign country is profound even as he joins the Chinatown community; Shew Lin, whose hopes for her family are threatened by her own misguided actions; Pon Man, who struggles with obligation and desire; and Siu Sang, who tries to be the caregiver everyone expects, even as she feels herself unravelling. And in the background, five little girls grow up under the weight of family expectations. As the past unfolds around her, Sammy finds herself embroiled in a volatile mixture of a dangerous love affair, a difficult and duty-filled relationship with her mother, and the still-fresh memories of her father's long illness.
An exquisite and evocative debut from one of Canada's bright new literary stars, The End of East sets family conflicts against the backdrop of Vancouver's Chinatown - a city within a city where dreams are shattered as quickly as they're built, and where history repeats itself through the generations.
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Book Reviews and Quotes
Praise for The End of East:
"I am awestruck by Jen Sookfong Lee's ambition in this, her first novel, an ambition that is fulfilled with power and grace. Whatever assumptions I had about Vancouver's Chinatown have been supplanted by Lee's vision of a world where family obligation is passed on through the generations, where personal dreams are sacrificed for family goals as a matter of course. It's a world that is different, and yet so terribly similar to my own. The End of East is a wise, challenging and heartbreaking novel. And Jen Sookfong Lee is a novelist with the eye and ear and soul of a poet."
-Gail Anderson-Dargatz, author of The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees
"From China to Vancouver, past to present, The End of East beautifully guides us through the heart of the Chan family and the Chinese immigrant experience - charting dreams, regrets, hopes and triumphs along the way. Jen Sookfong Lee's storytelling instincts are honest, unflinching and fearless."
-Ami McKay, author of The Birth House
"In this powerful first novel Jen Sookfong Lee moves fluently through the life of an immigrant family, speaking what remains unspoken between the generations. Observant and humane, The End of East shows us that within a family nothing ever really ends."
-Thomas Wharton, author of Salamander
Excerpt
Prologue
At first, what frightened her about this place was
the drizzle - the omnipresent grey of morning,
afternoon, nighttime too. She was afraid that she would
slowly be leached of colour and that, one day, while
she was combing her hair in the mirror, she would see
that her reflection was as grey as the sky, sea and
land that surrounded her. Everything she saw as she
moved about the city was filtered through the mist - dampened,
weighed down, burdened.
She would come home after a day in Chinatown and find
her wool pants covered in tiny drops of water - cold,
as if no human being had ever touched them before.
If she didn't brush them off, they would seep
into the fabric until they chilled her skin and she
shivered into the night, long after the dishes were
washed and everyone else had gone to bed.
In the summer, the sun finally emerged, dried up the
puddles, opened flowers that had cowered in the rain.
Buttercups shone in the light and multiplied in the
lawn faster than she could dig them out. Children spat
watermelon seeds over the porch railing, laughing at
the squirrels who scurried across the lawn in fear.
But every year, as winter returned, these days slipped
from her memory. Too good to be true, perhaps. Too
few to be important.
One morning, she woke and realized that she had come
to accept the drizzle, that she had grown resigned
to the squelch of rubber boots, the smell of damp wool
on the bus. She walked around the park in the mornings,
a film of fine water on her cheeks and eyelashes. Soon,
she could not start her day without washing her face
in the mist, letting the coolness do away with the
bad dreams from the night.
And the half-light that lingered throughout the
day let her believe that she was somewhere else, a
dream-like netherworld in which anything might happen.
Men could become lovers again. Women could be ageless.
Children might even come back home.
But what she settled for was the cool, wet breeze that
came in through the windows, the air that straightened
her spine as she walked. The way the drizzle stayed
with her, soaked into her hair, her clothes, her sheets.
It pushed itself onto her skin, huddled with her when
she cried, remained cool even as she cooked at a blazing
stove. Unshakeable. Like family.
One
Stanley Park
"It is time," my mother says as she pulls me from the
cab, "to run that old-man smell out of my house."
As I haul my luggage out of the trunk, the smell of
smouldering dust and gas fills the air, burning my
nose and mouth. I follow my mother's rapidly
retreating body around the side of the house to the
backyard, wondering if she has finally snapped and
set one my sisters ablaze.
In the driveway off the lane, she pokes angrily at
a crackling fire with a metal garden rake; I catch
my breath, holding my suitcase in front of me like
a shield. Piles of my grandfather's old, woolly
clothes line the backyard and spill into the gravel
alley, waiting to be tossed into the gassy flames.
A light rain begins to fall, generating puffs of smoke
that blow into my face. I cough, but she doesn't
seem to hear me above the snap and sizzle.
Waving the rake in my direction, she shouts, "Take
your suitcase upstairs and go help your sister." As
I turn back toward the house, she slaps down a stray
spark that has landed in her permed, greying hair.
Once inside, I scan the front hall. The same rubber
plant behind the door. My old slippers by the stairs.
I breathe out, and cobwebs (suspiciously familiar)
sway in the corners.
My mother steps through the door after me, her hands
on her wide hips. "What's taking you so long?
I thought I told you to run upstairs."
"I'm jet-lagged," I mutter, kicking off my
shoes.
She inspects my face closely, staring at me through
her thick glasses. "Jet-lagged? Montreal is only three
hours ahead. Go. Penny is waiting." She spins me
around with a little push and pokes me in the back
with one sharp fingernail.
I trudge up the stairs to my grandfather's bedroom,
where my sister is on her hands and knees, ripping
out the nubby red carpet he brought over from his small
apartment in Chinatown. Her long black hair drags on
the sub-floor.
"Samantha," Penny says, pushing her bangs out of her
eyes. "I feel like I've been waiting for you
forever."
My hands shake. I try to tell myself that it's
only the dampness in the air that's causing this
deep bone shiver. But, really, I am simply afraid.
When I was sitting in the airplane, the idea of coming
home didn't seem so real or so final, and I could
pretend that I wasn't passing over province after
province. Standing here, in my grandfather's
old room, with my mother's footsteps coming up
quickly behind me, I know that I have irrevocably returned.
"We have to get rid of your grandfather's junk
before the wedding. We'll need his bedroom for
the tea ceremony," my mother says, pushing me aside
to inspect the closet. She turns to Penny: "I don't
know why you have to get married so fast. I'm
too old to run around like this. Inconsiderate girl." She
lets out a loud breath, punctuating her rapid, angry
Chinese with a huff.
"Grandfather's been dead for ten years, Mother," Penny
says quietly in English, as usual. "And we've
been engaged for almost a month. You've had plenty
of time."
She waves her hand. "Why do I think you'll understand?
I've had other things to do, like look after
all you girls by myself."
Penny looks at me with her round, seemingly innocent
eyes and shrugs.
Excerpted from The End of East by
Jennifer S. Lee Copyright © 2007 by Jen Sookfong
Lee. Excerpted by permission of Vintage Canada, a division
of Random House of Canada Limited. All rights reserved.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Links
Visit
Jen Sookfong Lee's website at www.sookfong.com
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