American knees by Shawn Wong

Shawn Wong's "american knees" is a contemporary novel about a forty year-old, divorced,Chinese-American man named Raymond Ding. Throughout the novel Raymond must deal with his own prejudices and stereotypes of Asian-Americans, especially Asian-American women. He has to decide whether he loves Aurora Crane, the twenty-something Japanese/Irish-American
photographer, because she is half Japanese or because she is half white. It takes Raymond awhile to realize that these are inconsequential reasons. He loves Aurora, not her heritage.

In the midst of this romantic revelation, Raymond must also deal with co-workers, his pro-Asian
friends, Aurora's pushy best friend, and his widowed father (who decides that he wants a Chinese
picture bride). His ex-wife also stops by from time to time, just to remind Raymond and the reader
that he is no longer the "perfect Chinese son."

His whole world is turned upside down after his initial break-up with Aurora. Raymond starts to
date a Vietnamese co-worker with her own set of emotional baggage.

Betty, a refugee, left an abusive husband and a child behind when she moved to the Bay Area from
Texas. The scars left by her first marriage are deep and permanent. Raymond is afraid to hurt her,
feeling that she has suffered enough. It is during this relationship the we finally see Raymond grow
and rise as a person. The relationship with Betty forces Raymond to re-examine his life and what is truly important.

Shawn Wong does a beautiful job of blending high emotion with humor and simplicity. He doesn't focus on these characters as Asian-American, bitter against the white world for years of racism. Even though they do discuss race issues frequently, it is only of minimal importance to the story. The race is unimportant. The issues discussed are there only to reming us that these characters happen to be of Asian descent, but everything else in the story serves to remind us that they are human - no better, no worse. They are simply Americans.

The whole book is a search for identity. It is the identity that goes beyond race and other superficial factors. Raymond tries to find trues identity, as an individual. He finds the identity of the soul, where all these factors - race, community, family, career, relationships - come together and define who we are.

Unfortunately, the critics did not completely agree with me. I found two reviews of "american knees", one in Publisher's Weekly and the other in Entertainment Weekly.

Both critics agreed that the book was a humorous romantic comedy, but both failed to see it as anything more. They each mentioned that the dialogue advanced the plot but didn't say much for the characters speaking the lines.

Joseph Olshan of Entertainment Weekly had this to say: "Though Wong paints a careful portrait of his characters in their romantic plight, his novel is very short on narrative drive and, sadly, long on an anticlimatic series of conversational go-rounds..."

The critic in Publisher's Weekly also mentioned that the dialogue, "tends to advance the plot without adding much momentum or insight into the characters mouthing it... its [the story's] power is dissipated by the disembodied telephone debates over hyphenated identity."