Asian American Women's Popular Literature

Popular genre fiction written by Asian American women and featuring Asian American characters gained a market presence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These crossover booksmother-daughter narratives, chick lit, detective fiction, and food writingattempt to bridge ethnic audiences and a broader reading public. In Asian American Women's Popular Literature, Pamela Thoma considers how these books both depict contemporary American-ness and contribute critically to public dialogue about national belonging. Novels such as Michelle Yu and Blossom Kans China Dolls and Sonia Singhs Goddess for Hire, or mysteries including Sujata Masseys Girl in a Box and Suki Kims The Interpreter, reveal Asian American womens ambivalence about the trappings and prescriptions of mainstream American society. Thoma shows how these writers works address the various pressures on women to manage their roles in relation to family and financesreconciling the demands of work, consumer culture, and motherhoodin a neoliberal society. A volume in the American Literatures Initiative.