A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysa Chang
Review of A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysa Chang
A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysa Chang (2023). Published by SJP Lit.
I knew I wanted to read this novel when I saw the blurb because of the multi generational tale that was emerging from the synopsis, as well as the fact it was featuring a PhD student in the midst of crisis at its protagonist.
I knew nothing about the author, Elysa Chang, or her work before picking up this novel, and I think I’d read something by her again. Some authors I simply cannot get into their writing style, or even how they lay out their storylines, and while I did not absolutely love this novel, I thought the writing was well done.
The other thing that majorly drew me in was the fact the cover was pretty lovely to look at. Some people say you don’t want to judge a book by its cover, but I’m a sucker for cover design.
In the last five years covers have been pretty hit or miss for me, but this one hit my sweet spot. This and Trespasses got me sucked into reading the book because of how much I liked the cover.
Enough with the rambling—here’s the review.
A PhD student quits her program in the fourth year after her mother’s death.
Our protagonist in A Quitter’s Paradise is Eleanor, a fourth year PhD student whose mother has just died. Their relationship seems to have been mildly strained in the beginning, but it becomes increasingly obvious to me that Eleanor is struggling with the impacts of her mother’s death, leading to some of the decision she makes throughout the novel.
It doesn’t help that her husband, who is the darling of the PhD program, overshadows her own work. She ends up pregnant after quitting the program, but their marriage seems to be rocky from the fact he simply gets everything and she struggles. I got some subtle metaphors here with the context of Eleanor’s family’s story, as they struggled consistently to get where they’re at and she gives up, while her husband is privileged.
At the beginning of A Quitter’s Paradise, Eleanor has quit her PhD program. She is seeing another PhD candidate in the program on and off, Samir, despite being married to her husband.
At the same time, she is conducting illegal experiments with mice from the lab, and if she gets caught, it could mean the end for her husband along with her. But still Eleanor persists and tries to do her research, choosing to deliberately raise the stakes in order to fulfill some self-desires here. Things really begin to hit the fan when Eleanor begins to go off the rails and ends up doing something she really should not have done, leading to irreversible consequences.
This is juxtaposed with chapters about Eleanor’s family’s story, focusing on her father and her mother. We get hints of her father throughout the novel because he is still alive, but her mother is not.
This adds some key context to the decisions and guilt that Eleanor fields, on top of the grief, of having quit everything she—and her mother—had dreamed of her doing. Eleanor was the most interesting character in all of this, as the background noise of her family’s immigration only makes what is happening to her—and the family—as a whole even sadder. They tried their hardest to make it in this country, only for the dominoes to fall.
I think the closest comparison you could compare this book to is Disorientation, which is about another PhD student trying to uncover a secret about a Chinese poet she’s studying.
This book is still in a different vein, though, as it is primarily about grief and trying to overcome the obstacles of immigration and attempting to find the American Dream for one Taiwanese family.
There’s a lot of imagery and symbolism packed into the story itself—look closely at the cover—and how family dynamics can dictate one person’s life even after the people who’ve caused the most damage and steering are gone.
Overall Thoughts
The writing in this one is fairly accessible; I finished the book over the course of two days while I was in vacation in California. I think it was a pretty solid book, and it might be a debut (Googling future me verified this: it is a debut book).
I would recommend checking it out at least once if you’re interested in any of the themes I’ve mentioned during this review, or if the synopsis ends up vibing with you in a way that resonates. Give it a chance, check it out at the library, purchase a copy if it sounds good enough. Support debut AAPI authors!
Thank you to NetGalley, Elysa Chang, and SJP Lit for the advanced reader’s copy. A Quitter’s Paradise will be released on 06 Jun 2023.
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