Sour Heart

(Paperback)

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I will never forget the first time I read Jenny Zhang ... I was stunned, moved and quite frankly a little jealous Lena Dunham 'Bold, startling brilliance' Miranda July These seven startling stories of family, femininity, sexuality and otherness will plunge you into the tender and chaotic hearts of narrators you wont easily forget. Centred on a community of immigrants who have traded their endangered lives as artists in China and Taiwan for the constant struggle of life on the poverty line in 1990s New York City, the stories that make up Sour Heart examine the many ways that family and history can weigh us down, but also lift us up. From the young woman coming to terms with her grandmothers role in the Cultural Revolution, to the daughter struggling to understand where her family ends and she begins, to the girl discovering the power of her body to inspire and destroy, these vibrant, raw and powerful stories illuminate the complex and messy inner lives of girls struggling to define themselves. Fuelled by Jenny Zhangs singular voice and sly humour, Sour Heart introduces a bright new force in literary fiction.

Reviews

Obscene, beautiful, moving Jenny Zhangs astounding short story collection, Sour Heart, combines ingenious and tightly controlled technical artistry with an unfettered emotional directness that frequently moves, within single sentences, from overwhelming beauty to abject pain * New Yorker *
In these gaping fissures and silences, Zhang gives life to a chorus of voices rich with reinvention, a narrative genealogy of what it is to be, to speak and to write across many forms of expression at once -- Emily LaBarge * Guardian *
The writing is vibrant, the smells of the city vivid. Zhangs is an exciting voice and a welcome one * Observer *
Swerves from off-kilter humour to quiet devastation * Sunday Telegraph *
Zhang gives us huge windows into communities we dont often hear from or about and that is part of what makes this book special An exceptional writer with the ability to build expensive universes that are heavy with struggle but never have space for self-pity -- Nikesh Shukla * Independent *
Zhangs book has been lauded by every cool girl across the Pond from Miranda July to Tavi Gevinson and, of course, Dunham. Relegate anything else youre reading there is no other book to be seen with now * The Times *
Who isnt anticipating this book Jenny Zhang is one of the most exciting and thoroughly original new voices in American fiction, and Sour Heart is worth every bit of hype Hilarious and devastating, tender, and mischievous. Zhangs beautiful, direct and sometimes scatological poetry (and her bang-on essays) had already won many of us over, but this book will catapult her to another league * LitHub *
An astonishing selection of short stories * Stylist *
Explosive With Sour Heart, Zhang's obsessions and powers her wit, achingly adolescent characters, pop poetic vulgarityhave coalesced. Her mainstream debut is both fully realized and nervy, a fearless entrance into a literary world that's Zhang's for the taking * O Magazine *
The narrators of these tales pull you close and hold you hostage with their singular takes on the world Youd be hard pressed to find a more intimate, raw and funny collection this summer * AnOther Magazine *
Raw, and often darkly comic the tales revel in the intimate details of domesticity, resonant of A M Holmes or Helen Ellis * Red *
A buzz book * Cosmopolitan *
A tapestry of beautifully evocative voices that I got lost in * Grazia *
I will never forget the first time I read Jenny Zhang ... I was stunned, moved and quite frankly a little jealous * Lena Dunham *
As I read, I quickly realized this was something so new and powerful that it would come to shape the world, not just the literary world, but what we know about reality. Zhangs version of honesty goes way past the familiar, with passages that burst into a bold, startling brilliance. Get ready * Miranda July *
Her writing is resolute in its ability to unsettle and even uproot lighting your every nerve on fire, leaving your every synapse flashing * Nylon *
Sour Heart blasts open the so-called immigrant narrative by showing us the claustrophobic, cracked lives and demented love of families and by giving us the deepest x-ray of American childhood I can recall. Dirty, hilarious, and utterly original * Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs *
Jenny Zhang has an uncanny ability to articulate the most confusing, conflicting, elusive thoughts and feelings the kinds that occur in under a millisecond but secretly rule our lives. It's dazzling to witness until one observation or line of dialogue sends you over the edge into the depths of another person's truth. I emerged from Sour Heart bleary-eyed and in love * Tavi Gevinson *
Seven bold stories told by fictional female Chinese immigrants living in the Big Apple * Independent *
A hilarious and highly original debut * Irish Times *
Impressive a vivid collection * Emerald Street *

Author Bio

Jenny Zhang was born in Shanghai and raised in New York. She is the author of a poetry collection, Dear Jenny, We Are All Find, and a collection of poems and essays, The Selected Jenny Zhang. She was nominated for a National Magazine Award for her essay in Poetry magazine, and her writing has also appeared in the New York Times magazine, New York magazine, Rookie, Lenny and BuzzFeed. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Jennybagel.com / @Jennybagel