Wednesday’S Child

Amazing read

Yiyun Li's latest offering, "Wednesday's Child," is a mesmerizing collection of short stories that spans a decade, delving into the intricacies of loss, alienation, ageing, and the peculiarities of contemporary life. Known for her prize-winning novel, "The Book of Goose," Li returns to her roots as a master storyteller, weaving tales that are tender yet unsentimental, metaphysical yet blunt, and brimming with both wisdom and unnerving beauty. The stories within "Wednesday's Child" are a testament to Li's unparalleled ability to capture the complexities of human existence. From a grieving mother meticulously documenting her losses in a spreadsheet to a professor navigating a complicated intimacy with her hairdresser, Li's characters grapple with the ordinary until it becomes unsustainable. The narratives crack open, revealing profound and mysterious forces at play – death, violence, and estrangement. Even in the seemingly mundane, Li imbues everyday life with meaning, highlighting indelible details like a stolen jar of honey, a mound of wounded ants, or a long-hidden photograph that must finally see the light of day. Li's writing is a delicate alchemy of opposites, seamlessly blending the tender with the unsentimental, the metaphysical with the blunt, and the funny with the horrifying. Her omniscient narrative voice navigates the depths of human experience while acknowledging the vast expanse of the unknown. The author's ability to explore the true cost of living is evident throughout the collection, and each story resonates with her trademark combination of unnerving beauty and searing wisdom. The inclusion of a remarkable novella, previously unpublished in the UK, adds an extra layer of intrigue to the collection. As readers traverse the landscapes of Li's stories, they are treated to a kaleidoscope of emotions and reflections on the human condition. The profound impact of each tale lingers, leaving an indelible mark on the reader's psyche. In "Wednesday's Child," Yiyun Li proves once again why she is a literary force to be reckoned with. Her ability to capture the essence of life's complexity, coupled with her unmatched storytelling prowess, makes this collection a must-read for those who appreciate the nuance and depth of short fiction. As Li articulates the true cost of living through her characters, readers are invited to contemplate the beauty and challenges inherent in the human experience, making "Wednesday's Child" a poignant and unforgettable literary journey.

"Wednesday's Child" written by Yiyun Li is a compilation of unique stories with a well crafted storyline that hold a different perspective of the real world.The book consists of 10 elaborately described stories that show the harshness of the real world. The first story of the book has the title as Wednesday's Child where Rosalie, a mother is mentally depressed because of the death of her fifteen year old daughter, Marcie and while travelling in a train she remembers how she longed for her dead daughter and how everyone blamed her for not being a good parent by not checking on her if she was going throug adolescent depression or not. The second story is about Aunty Mei, who is a babysitter who gets paid to take care of newborn baby and mother for only the first month of the baby. She doesn't agree to anybody who tries to convince her to stay with the newborn baby more than a month. Every story, every chapter had a deep expression and it was described in such a cold way that I could feel the pain, the sadness of the harsh reality but still as if we can do nothing to put an end to this sad reality.This was my very first book of Yiyun Li, and to be honest, every story from this book touched my heart.

This collection is not just a compilation of stories but a cohesive exploration of the emotional and material costs of living. Li skillfully balances sadness with humour, reflecting the complexities of life itself. The characters in these stories are authentic, often quirky, yet always relatable, making the reader feel deeply connected to their experiences. While the stories in “Wednesday’s Child” touch on themes of grief, loss, guilt, and alienation, they also offer moments of humour, reminding us that life’s spectrum includes both joy and sorrow. Yiyun Li’s controlled and beautifully rendered prose captivates readers, and the collection as a whole is a testament to her skill as a writer. In conclusion, “Wednesday’s Child” is a remarkable collection that delves into the human experience with depth and sensitivity. Yiyun Li’s storytelling is both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant, and her ability to convey life’s and loss’s complexities is exceptional. This book is a must-read for those who appreciate the beauty of well-crafted stories that explore the intricacies of human emotions and connections.

How chilling to know that the titular story that opens this scintillating collection mirrors the author’s own set of bereavements. Yiyun Li would never have thought her own short story would prefigure what happens to her own child in February 2024, and that the circumstances would have been so similar. What is even worse is learning she had already lost another child to suicide in 2017, which formed the subject of a 2019 novel, “As I Gather”. It is unimaginable how the author copes with these harrowing losses and continues to churn out her stories, each tinged no doubt with sadness, but never of the self-indulgent or self-pitying sort. Instead, there is a sense of stoicism as each character braces herself (invariably women) for the next blow as she ponders the consequences her life choices or choices made for her. There’s Aunt Mei, the confinement nurse in “A Sheltered Woman”, who is careful not to stay longer than the one-month contract with all her charges, all 131 of them, ostensibly to keep her business going, but perhaps not to become too attached to these babies and their families. In “Hello, Goodbye”, Nina’s precocious 12-year-old daughter tells her that “things will go right for us if we’re lucky, things will go wrong if we’re not lucky, there is nothing you parents can do”, when discussing a schoolfriend’s misdemeanour. Perhaps this mantra helps maintain a kind of balance in the role of parents. In the same story, Nina ponders when her friend Katie reminds her of her cousin’s death in his sophomore year, “How strange… that after a young life ends people think and talk about the death more than the life. It is easier that way: tragedies and catastrophes always have an ending.” She reasons, “harder to communicate… was the enduring unhappiness”. In some of these stories, characters are displaced and in search of connection. In “A Small Flame”, Bella revisits China with her American childhood friend Peter and his French-Canadian boyfriend Adrian, a writer who was tracing his family history to China through his great-grandfather, whom he only knows has the surname “Li”. Bella is irked by “blue-eyed, pale-skinned” Adrian’s “romances [he creates] for his characters and himself in the places he had the remotest reason to claim.” Bella reasons that “people without genealogies… were like weeds, their existence of consequence to no one but weed killers. Perhaps that was why any reasonable person would try to locate a family root or two.” Despite some of these characters’ cynicism, the heartbreaking truth was the devastating loneliness they feel, which is revealed for instance in “On the Street Where You Live.”In it, Becky, mother of an autistic child, keeps a journal about the people she meet, because “people around her were like lights in a house: the more, the merrier; the more, the less space left unlit.” Alas, the loneliness is unquenched even when meeting people facing similar issues because “people in the same boat… often found more reasons to judge and denounce.” In that story, Yiyun Li brings a startlingly astute observation about how exploitative it was to get a special-needs child to express beauty for which he has no understanding of through Becky’s reaction to a music lesson: “Becky felt furious - at Vivien, who used William’s voice to make something beautiful, when this beauty was of no use to the boy; at Vivien’s mother, for wiping away her tears because she, who must have suffered plenty, had the luxury of being moved by this unnatural beauty; and at herself, too, for being there, a witness to a crime, an accomplice, really. They had all made this moment into a memory for themselves without William’s permission; they have meaning to something he would not attach meaning to.” The rest of the stories in this compelling collection invite the reader to take pause and reconsider human suffering, and what it is to survive and even thrive in less-than-ideal circumstances. A solid 5 stars.

Alles perfekt

Wonderful short stories.

I don't know this author, read 1st 3 chapters thinking there was a link. The writing is grand, the style is, if not depressing, then played sotto voce in each story. A great understanding of diverse calamities and unwanted situations poignantly aimed at women's "troubles". It was in all a sad little collection none of which seemed, to me, to end satisfyingly; neither sadly, nor conclusively. I will read more of this author to see if there's a subtlety I'm missing.

I loved "the book of goose" by her, but this one is for women. I am a man and could only endure 70 pages