What Isn't There - by Jocelyn Lieu (Paperback)

About the Book

Lieu's narrative achieves the rare feat of articulating the communal grief that was felt in the wake of 9/11. By telling her experience--how an act of unprecedented violence collided with her day-to-day life--she restores the event back in the realm of lived experience.

Book Synopsis

What Isn't There is Jocelyn Lieu's own interpretation of what 9/11 meant to her and to New York City. It presents her kaleidoscope of memories of the unforeseen consequences of September 11, when an unprecedented act of violence collided with her day to day life as a mother and a writer. This retelling of the experience of a woman who lived near Ground Zero restores the event back in the realm of lived experience where it belongs.

Review Quotes

"Jocelyn Lieu's refined prose has a rich texture and is permeated with marvelous, resonant details." -- Ha Jin

"This is a beautiful book--poetic and candid." -- Sherman Alexie

About the Author

Born a bi-racial Chinese-American in New York, Jocelyn Lieu was educated at Yale. She has taught writing and Asian American literature at Purdue, Butler, and Long Island universities has been on the liberal studies faculty of Parsons School of Design/New School University. Her fiction has appeared in the Penguin USA anthology of contemporary Asian-American fiction entitled Charlie Chan is Dead. The Children was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and This World, which appeared in the Penguin anthology was singled it out for praise in the New York Times Book Review.