Ghost Forest
Books | Fiction / Literary
4.4
Pik-Shuen Fung
This “powerful” (BuzzFeed) debut about love, grief, and family welcomes you into its pages and invites you to linger, staying with you long after you’ve closed its covers. “I am madly in love with this book, a kaleidoscopic wonder.”—T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless GirlsHow do you grieve, if your family doesn’t talk about feelings?This is the question the unnamed protagonist of GhostForest considers after her father dies. One of the many Hong Kong “astronaut” fathers, he stays there to work, while the rest of the family immigrated to Canada before the 1997 Handover, when the British returned sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.As she revisits memories of her father through the years, she struggles with unresolved questions and misunderstandings. Turning to her mother and grandmother for answers, she discovers her own life refracted brightly in theirs.Buoyant and heartbreaking, Ghost Forest is a slim novel that envelops the reader in joy and sorrow. Fung writes with a poetic and haunting voice, layering detail and abstraction, weaving memory and oral history to paint a moving portrait of a Chinese-Canadian astronaut family.“Ghost Forest is the tender/funny book we can all appreciate after a hellish year.”—Literary Hub
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More Details:
Author
Pik-Shuen Fung
Pages
272
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Published Date
2021-07-13
ISBN
0593230965 9780593230961
Community ReviewsSee all
"This was a tender anthropological dig, enabled by grief, through generations of the authors family. It touches on personal, cultural, and immigrant elements. Some entries are quiet, others are striking, all are emotive and illustrative. (I only just learned today that “liked” books are only the ones that have received 4 or 5 stars, so if I liked a book more than I didn’t I’m giving it at least 4 stars going forward)"
C
CaitVD
"A deeply intimate tribute to grief, love, sacrifice, and forgiveness. The power of this novel is that it truly delves into the essence of family; so often we do not truly know our parents, grandparents, guardians, until it is too late; we love, but it is so easy to take the little things, the unspoken things, for granted. We remember the fights, the disappointments, but when we miss someone, all of that falls away to reveal the beauty and strength of the tenderness, the happiness."
Emily
"I loved the vignettes. I loved that I could put it down and always just pick it up whenever. I loved the simplicity. It was beautiful, simple and devastating. "
Fiona Ame
"this was a great read that went by fast. it’s a well-written look at immigration, cultural differences, family, and grief. i loved the writing style—every couple pages has its own title so it reads like a bunch of short stories/excerpts but still works as a linear narrative. loved!"
K M
Katie M
