Gish Jen with Weike Wang: Bad Bad Girl

Library Talks

In this episode of Library Talks, acclaimed novelist Gish Jen joins Library Talks to discuss her latest book Bad Bad Girl. She is joined by fellow novelist Weike Wang.

Bad Bad Girl began as a memoir of her late mother, Loo Shu-hsin, before evolving into a fictionalized portrait of their turbulent mother-daughter relationship. As a child Shu-hsin learns how little her life is valued as a woman in 1930s Shanghai and is constantly reprimanded, "Bad bad girl! You don't know how to talk!" Years later, struggling to keep her own family together as an expat in America, she finds herself incanting the same refrain to her own strong-willed, outspoken daughter. Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl weaves fragments of memory with careful invention to create an intimate portrait of the complex bonds between mothers and daughters.