The golden mountain : beyond the American dream / Irene Kai

"The Golden Mountain" tells a powerful personal story that is shaped by the collision of traditional Chinese and modern American culture. Spanning four generations of women, the characters include Great-Grandmother Wong Oi, whose desperate status seeking ruins her life; Grandmother Choi Kum, an educated woman who ends up with ten children in America; and mother Margaret, who takes the pressures of a hateful forced marriage out on her children. One of those children, author Irene Kai, is caught in the clash of traditional and modern ways. She responds by descending into sex and drugs and a high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle, culminating in a growing awareness that the scars she bears are reappearing in her own children. Scenes of raw passion, anger, brutality, and pleasure intermingle in this stunning narrative that' s both specific in the details of a woman navigating two cultures and universal in its portrayal of pain and transformation.