Narrator

The narrator is an unnamed Chinese American woman who is diagnosed with cancer shortly after her husband Sam leaves her for another woman. At the beginning of the novel, she exists largely as a passive participant in a life structured by Sam’s decisions. Her marriage, her role as a stay at home mother, and even the sequencing of major emotional events are presented as things that happen to her rather than actions she initiates. Sam proposes how to tell the children about the separation, controls the timing of his departure, and appears to have authored the narrative of their relationship long before the novel begins. The narrator’s passivity is reinforced by her anonymity. She has no name, no profession, and no clearly articulated desires beyond maintaining stability for her children. As a result, she initially feels less like an agent than a vessel through which loss...