“On September ninth, Ingrid Yang could be found cramped over a desk, left foot asleep, right hand swollen. She had Xio-Wen Chou on the mind, so much so, she felt his allusions and alliterations leaking from her every orifice and puddling beneath her. Even on the rare occasions sleep visited, Ingrid was plagued by a constant, pinching pain in her stomach. Sometimes she imagined, hopefully, that she was developing ulcers. No one could fault her for failing her dissertation because of stomach ulcers, could they?”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are the opening lines to Elaine Chou’s novel Disorientation. Twenty-nine year old Ingrid is struggling to finish her doctoral dissertation on the poetry of an award winning Asian American poet. She’s having trouble focusing and realizes that she was talked into her dissertation topic by her advisor. But she’s so close to finishing she decides to power through until she finds a mysterious hand written note in one of the archive boxes of Chou’s papers. She gets distracted hunting for the note’s author which leads to a discovery of a university-wide cover up. Should she jeopardize her chance at a doctorate by revealing the discovery?
The book jacket says “With her trusty friend Eunice Kim by her side and her rival Vivian Vo hot on her tail, together they set off a roller coaster of mishaps and misadventures, from campus protests and OTC drug hallucinations to book burnings and Yellow Peril propaganda.” Ingrid begins to also question her relationship with her Caucasian fiancée and the white institution with which she’s associated.
If you’re interested in reading a novel that revolves around the complexities of being an Asian American in academic America, then you must read Disorientation by Elaine Chou.
