Almost any person perceived as a visible minority has had to fend off that icky and othering question, “Where are you really from?” at one point in their life. Expanding upon the intent and subtext of that intrusive question, Elaine Hsieh Chou, author of Disorientation, produces seven varied and intriguing stories (six shorts and one novella) in her latest published collection, aptly titled Where Are You Really From.
Each tale is a unique scenario with unusual protagonists. To name a few: a retirement-age vacuum salesman receives a youthful and rebellious mail order bride; an American woman moves to Paris to find herself figuratively before finding herself literally; a Taiwanese teenager spends a summer in thrall to her slightly older, worldlier cousin. Despite the variety of ages and backgrounds, Chou gives readers a comprehensive understanding of each character’s psychology and background in the limited pages of each story.
Additionally, Chou manages to fit each short with expansive worldbuilding and a creeping sense of dread as each disturbed scenario plays out. Sometimes, a story gently dips a toe into the pool of speculative fiction (“Mail Order Love”), but sometimes it’s fully immersed in the world of science fiction (“Happy Endings”), as fully formed and critical of some aspect of society as a Black Mirror episode. Regardless, Where Are You Really From maintains a vivid sense of place in all tales, from the small and familiar to the twisted and fantastical.
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All these narratives share a recurring motif of yearning or obsession with another person, often to an uncomfortable or taboo degree. Through this prism, Chou delves deeply into what desire for someone else (sexual or otherwise) reveals about other desires hidden deeper within someone’s psyche: a desire to belong within society, a desire to return to the past, a desire to become an idealized version of oneself, a desire to own and control, etc. Each main character, too, seems aware of how their wishes can turn against them.
Chou fearlessly unearths her characters’ intrusive thoughts and desires; in fact, one criticism could be how they give in a bit too readily to their worst impulses. It’s hard to say that any of the protagonists in Where Are You Really From are likeable (except maybe the sympathetic mother in “The Dollhouse”), yet readers can still find something to latch onto because of the dark honesty that spills out onto the page.
In the collection’s concluding novella, “Casualties of Art,” a toxic male writer keeps a running, caustic commentary of what he detests and presumes about everyone around him. Yet, he is still annoyingly relatable because of his underlying imposter syndrome, which speaks to most creatives. Chou demonstrates a surprisingly empathetic understanding of David’s psychology, formed by the specifics of his background (Korean-Chinese, working-class immigrant parents) and the social elements that inform his detestable views on race and gender.
The author does this again in “Featured Background” as a father attempts to reconnect with his daughter, despite an insurmountable generational divide that defines how each understands childhood trauma. And she does it with a twist in “Happy Endings,” luring readers with one perspective before switching to another, for a shocking and sickening reveal.
To this reader, out of all seven stories, “You Put A Rabbit On Me” is an especially interesting peek into the author’s mind. The American protagonist is named Elaine A (same first name as Chou), and she encounters her French dopplegänger, Elaine B, while spending time abroad. This unexpected twin quickly proves to represent a desire for a different cultural identity, one that is strangely familiar yet insidious. Rather masterfully, the story ends perversely, full of meaningful symbolism about the many lives we live in our heads and how they may never leave us.
Where Are You Really From plays with cultural identity in complicated ways as well. While almost all the main characters are some type of East Asian, their Asian-ness sits somewhere between the forefront and the background of the story. Sometimes it is heavily remarked upon, and sometimes it’s just a passing detail of minor consequence. A reader can feel that the author and the characters simultaneously want to address this element and rail against having to address it, which is understandable.
Chou provides readers with indelible and effective short stories from a modern Asian-American perspective that will haunt them for some time.
