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Running Time: 09:22 hrsNarrator: Apple Alex (synthetic)Publisher:BC Libraries Cooperative, 2019
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Running Time: 09:22 hrsNarrator: Apple Alex (synthetic)Publisher:BC Libraries Cooperative, 2019
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Running Time: 09:22 hrsNarrator: Apple Alex (synthetic)Publisher:BC Libraries Cooperative, 2019
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Publisher:BC Libraries Cooperative, 2019
Details:
- Author: Wong, LindsayDate:Created2018Summary:
In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family whose members blamed their woes on ghosts and demons when in fact they should have been on anti-psychotic meds. Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the "woo-woo"-Chinese ghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessed the woo-woo's sinister effects; at the age of six, she found herself living in the food court of her suburban mall, which her mother saw as a safe haven because they could hide there from dead people, and on a camping trip, her mother tried to light Lindsay's foot on fire to rid her of the woo-woo. The eccentricities take a dark turn, however, when her aunt, suffering from a psychotic breakdown, holds the city of Vancouver hostage for eight hours when she threatens to jump off a bridge. And when Lindsay herself starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family. On one hand a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience, and on the other a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself.
Subject(s): Biography | British Columbia | Chinese Canadians | Family relationships | Patients | Psychoses | Vancouver | Wong, LindsayOriginal Publisher: Vancouver, Arsenal Pulp PressLanguage(s): EnglishISBN: 9781551527369, 1551527367Collection(s)/Series: Canada Reads 2019 | Leacock Medal 2019 | BC Book Prizes 2019
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