Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang, book review: Coming of age stories the world needs to hear

Jenny Zhang’s debut collection of short stories orbits around one of the most fundamental human needs – a sense of belonging

Once our most vital physiological needs have been satisfied, a sense of belonging quickly becomes the most critical necessity for human fulfilment.

At least, that’s what American psychologist Abraham Maslow argued in his oft-cited 1943 hierarchy of needs – and nearly 75 years later it still seems to ring true.

Sour Heart, a debut collection of short stories from writer Jenny Zhang orbits around that notion, with each narrative offering a fresh take on the coming of age story, told from the perspectives of different daughters of Chinese immigrants whose lives in America are loosely connected.

Great things have been expected of the American author, especially after actress and writer Lena Dunham – who Zhang has called her “fairy godmother” – chose her debut anthology as the first publication for her Lenny imprint – and she does not disappoint.

In seven short stories, Zhang manages to provide a refreshingly honest portrayal of some of the more universal realities of girlhood: negotiating what it means to be a woman in the world, discovering sexuality and searching for a sense of belonging within one’s own family and within the broader framework of society.

By anchoring her stories in the experience of being Chinese-American, however, Zhang, who was born in China and raised in New York, also manages to weave together a larger tapestry of the immigrant experience in America.

The author refuses to shy away from the more bleak realities of building a new life in a new country with limited resources. The plumbing situation, for one, is not always ideal.

In the opening story of her book, “We Love You Crispina”, Zhang shows us she isn’t here to sugarcoat bitter truths: “If more than one of us felt the stirrings of a major shit declaring its intention to see the world beyond our buttholes, then we were in trouble because it meant someone had to use our perpetually clogged toilet, which wasn’t capable of handling anything more than mice pellets, and we would have to dip into our supply of old toothbrushes and chopsticks to mash our king-sized shits into smaller pieces.”

Grotesque, yes. But often, reality is grotesque – and a frank discussion of the “king-sized shit” you have to deal with trying to survive as a family with scant resources in Bushwick, New York is surprisingly refreshing.

It’s especially invigorating coming from the view point of a young girl. There aren’t enough stories about girlhood – and there certainly aren’t enough stories about girlhood told from the perspectives of Chinese-American girls.

Zhang has said in in previous interviews that early on in her career she was advised to move away from trying to tell stories about Chinese-American characters in her writing – and that she should consider exploring more “universal” narratives instead. Readers of Sour Heart will be thankful that she clearly threw away that misguided advice.

That’s what makes Zhang’s work so remarkable: her unique ability to tell universal truths about what it means to belong, while illuminating realities we simply do not hear often enough about. ​

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang is published by Bloomsbury Circus, £16.99