In her singular voice—both humble and brave, touching and humorous—Maxine Hong Kingston gives us a poignant and beautiful memoir-in-verse that captures the wisdom that comes with age. As she reflects on her sixty-five years, she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage to her arrest at a peace march in Washington. On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, she revisits her most beloved characters—Wittman Ah-Sing, the Tripmaster Monkey, and Fa Mook Lan, the Woman Warrior—and presents us with a beautiful meditation on China then and now. The result is a marvelous account of an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.
“A brilliantly penned memoir written in a fluid, narrative poetry genre. . . . Gritty…and energetic all in one breath.” —San Francisco Book Review
“Rich. . . . Only a few older writers—poets or not—can manage this balance of self-amusement and genuine longing. It’s an effect fully equal to the shaded tones of Kingston’s best writing.”—
The New York Times Book Review “[A] graceful meditation. . . . Achieves meaningful insights into the art of living.” —
Boston Globe “A gentle, meandering memoir, organized as a long poem. . . . Cinematic and sensual.” —
San Francisco Chronicle“Delights as an unconventional, intimate and intensely personal life story. . . . Forcing a slower, calmer contemplation of Hong Kingston’s words. . . . Moving. . . . Whether she’s recalling the birth of her son or the time she was arrested for protesting the Iraq war, Kingston’s memories are pungent and vivid.” —
Post and Courier “She leads the reader on a tour of her native China, her rich language often matching the lushness of the landscape itself. . . . Effortlessly transitions from personal experience to the worlds of her characters. . . . As much an examination of the nature of time and aging as it is an exploration of cultural identity and origin,
I Love a Broad Margin to my Life contains both moments of dark alienation and buoyant transcendence.” —
Time Out New York “Blurring the lines among poetry, fiction, and memoir. . . . A meditation on form and formlessness, on meaning and identity, and how the most essential truths often exist outside the boundaries, in something of an ur-state.” —
Los Angeles Times “She seems at peace with the necessary sacrifices and negotiations she’s made as a writer, wife and mother. Yet she’s also acutely aware of her mortality and determined to carve out the free time to which she feels entitled at last. . . . Written in a dreamlike, impressionistic style. . . . Takes on a kind of mythical quality.” —
The Boston Globe “Engaging. . . . Startling.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR
“A sprawling, globe-hopping long poem. . . . Kingston is thinking deeply about the act of writing itself. . . . I found myself compelled by Kingston’s efforts to capture the disjointed landscape wrought by globalization. . . . Touching. . . . Offers its readers a memorable set of images, narratives, and questions that continue to push against the foundations of memoir, just as her earlier work, The Woman Warrior, did four decades earlier.” —
Hyphen Magazine “A brilliantly penned memoir. . . . She shares cultural experiences with a primal pentameter that may equal or surpass anything her readers have ever experienced.” —
San Francisco Book Review