Narrator

The narrator, from whose first-person perspective the novel is told, but who is not named, is living in Boston and pursuing her PhD in chemistry at the time the novel opens. Her parents are Chinese immigrants, and she remembers an unhappy childhood during which the family was always fighting. The narrator has fulfilled her parents' expectations throughout her life up to the point that she leaves her PhD program following an outburst in which she breaks beakers on the lab floor. Identifying herself as one who suffers internally, she has resisted displaying her feelings of inadequacy and alienation up until this point.

The narrator struggles with how to respond to her boyfriend Eric's proposal throughout the first part of the novel, until Eric finally leaves her behind for a new job in Ohio. As she works through the effects her childhood has on her academic career, she also...