Simple Recipes

Book excerpt: With delicate language and wisdom, Madeleine Thien explores the longing of families pulled apart by conflicts between generations, cultures, and values.Each of these stories captures a deeply personal world in which characters struggle to reconcile family loyalty with individual desires. In "House," a 10-year-old girl longs for the alcoholic mother who left the house one day never to return. In "Dispatch," a woman tries to hold her marriage together even after finding proof that her husband is in love with someone else. In "A Map of the City, " a young woman's troubled relationship with her father overshadows the course she takes in her adult life. Thien's fresh perspective and spare, haunting prose have already won her prizes and the praise of established masters. "Simple Recipes" is the beginning of a luminous writing career.