Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City: A Memoir [B1924]

2023 PB Advance Reader's Copy (ARC). in nice clean condition. 2024 PNBA Award Winner. An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore. "A love letter to Atlantic City and the Asian American working class."―The Los Angeles Times. "Joyful. . . . Wong's memoir invites those who have been overlooked in America to hold up their verses, accolades and solidarity in a collective rejoinder to their detractors."―The Washington Post.

In the late 1980s on the Jersey shore, Jane Wong watches her mother shake ants from an MSG bin behind the family's Chinese restaurant. She is a hungry daughter frying crab rangoon for lunch, a child sneaking naps on bags of rice, a playful sister scheming to trap her brother in the freezer before he traps her first. Jane is part of a family staking their claim to the American dream, even as this dream crumbles. Beneath Atlantic City's promise lies her father's gambling addiction, an addiction that causes him to disappear for days and ultimately leads to the loss of the restaurant. In this debut memoir, Jane Wong tells a new story about Atlantic City, one that resists a single identity, a single story as she writes about making do with what you have-and what you don't. What does it mean, she asks, to be both tender and angry? What is strength without vulnerability-and humor? Filled with beauty found in unexpected places, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is a resounding love song of the Asian American working class, a portrait of how we become who we are, and a story of lyric wisdom to hold and to share.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I adore the writing in this book so much. I love how clearly we can hear Wong's voice throughout the pages, which I believe is what makes a memoir something that's more than just a story of someone's life."; "So incredibly well written and thought provoking. Her prose is on another level. The non linear style threw me a bit otherwise it was quite perfect"; "Wow...just wow. Jane Wong beautifully intertwines personal narratives, research, and family memory into fresh and compelling essays. She refuses to accept essentialist narratives about Chinese American stories, but does not dismiss the ways her particular experience exists within a larger context and is enhanced by it. Her writing voice carries so much power, yearning, and love. We need more memoirs like this!"