All That Matters

Jan Goldstein

ISBN 10: 1401307523 / ISBN 13: 9781401307523

Published by Hyperion, 2005

About this Item

Kiam-Kim is three years old when he arrives by ship at Gold Mountain with his father and his grandmother, Poh-Poh, the Old One. It is 1926, and because of famine and civil war in China, they have left their village in Toishan province to become the new family of Third Uncle, a wealthy businessman whose own wife and son are dead. The place known as Gold Mountain is Vancouver, Canada, and Third Uncle needs help in his large Chinatown warehouse. Canada's 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act forces them, and many others, to use false documents, or ghost papers, to get past the 'immigration demons' and become Third Uncle's Gold Mountain family. This is the beginning of All That Matters, the eagerly anticipated sequel to Wayson Choy's bestselling first novel, The Jade Peony. The author takes us once again to the Vancouver of the 1930s and 1940s to follow the lives of the Chen family, this time through the experiences of First Son, Kiam-Kim, whose childhood and adolescence in a strict but caring Chinatown family is at once strange and familiar to us. Like many families around them, they must survive in unsavoury surroundings. Since the closing down of the railroad work camps, Chinatown is filled with unemployed labourers who live in poor rooming-houses. Sea winds fill the rooms with acrid smoke from the mills and refineries of False Creek, and freight trains shake their windows at night with noises the Old One says are dragons playing. Yet this is a land where the Chen family will not starve; where they will be able to keep a girl baby, and not sell her into servitude as was the Old One, whose back is scarred from whippings. In their new life, however, there is a constant struggle to balance the new Gold Mountain ideas with the old traditions and knowledge of China. Old One doesn't like Kiam-Kim to speak English, and Kiam-Kim knows that to be without manners, without a sense of correct social ritual, is to bring dishonour to one's family. Children who lose their 'Chinese brains' are called 'bamboo stumps' by the elders because of the hollow emptiness within, so Kiam-Kim must study hard at Chinese school as well as English school. He must help Poh-Poh to cook for her mahjong ladies, and her hard knuckles rap his head when he misbehaves. Although Poh-Poh urges him to stick with his own kind and not let non-Chinese 'barbarians' into the house, Kiam-Kim forges a lasting friendship with Jack O'Connor, the Irish boy next door. He also has a girlfriend, Jenny, daughter of one of the mahjong ladies who owns a corner grocery shop. Meanwhile, China is suffering during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and soon the whole world is at war. Boys at school are enlisting, and many Chinese have gone back to fight for the old country. Kiam-Kim wonders, What world would we fight for? Canada is his home, yet he knows that the new country does not want Chinese soldiers. The Jade Peony, was a genuine contribution to history as well as fiction according to author Margaret Drabble. It spent 26 weeks on the Globe and Mail bestseller list, shared the 1995 Trillium Award with Margaret Atwood, and won the Vancouver Book Award. Blending rich historical detail with powerful personal stories, All That Matters follows Kiam-Kim as he learns the responsibilities and rewards of family and community, as he approaches adulthood in a city much divided, and as he faces decisions about what truly matters in life. More than anything else, the novel is an exploration of his character. I think all stories should arise organically from the characters' definitions of the world, says Wayson Choy, who believes that it is in the identification of reader with character that literature exists. If you give details that ring true.that's the meaning conveyed by good writing.

Seller Inventory # CIN1401307523G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: All That Matters
• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1401307523
• ISBN 13: 9781401307523
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Jennifer Stympler has nothing left to lose. The love of her life has asked her to move out, her mother is dead after a senseless car accident and her father is building a new family with no room in it for her. So she takes a bottle of tequila to the beach, mixes it with Xanax and waits for an oblivion that never comes. Even her suicide is a failure. In her grandmother's care, Jenny learns to trust and hope again, inspired by the older woman's tales of tragedy and heroism during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Synopsis

A YOUNG WOMAN MAKES A JOURNEY FROM THE EDGE OF DEATH INTO THE JOYS OF LIFE A deeply moving, humourous debut novel in which a young woman in despair is saved by her irrepressibly feisty grandmother and learns to embrace life fully. Jennifer Stempler has nothing left to lose. The love of her life has asked her to move out, her mother died in a senseless car accident five years ago and her famous father has started a brand-new family with no room in it for her. So 23-year-old Jennifer decides to pursue a peaceful and permanent oblivion with the aid of a cocktail of antidepressants and tequila. Even her suicide attempt turns out to be a failure. Gabby Zuckerman refuses to let Jennifer, her granddaughter, self-destruct. In her grandmother's care, Jennifer learns to trust and hope again. Jennifer exposes her paralysing grief at the loss of her mother and learns the painful history of her Nana's past during the Nazi occupation of Poland. By revealing her own tragic and heroic experience, Gabby gives Jennifer an understanding of her own life's value.

When Gabby reveals her own secret - one that proves to be Jennifer's toughest challenge yet - Jennifer struggles to find out if her newfound appreciation of life will sustain her.