Disorientation

She was twenty-nine years old and in mounting debt from her undergraduate degree. Four years ago, she had passed her comprehensive exams and started her dissertation. This year, the eighth and final year of her PhD, her funding would run out-an unhappy situation in any circumstance, but compounded by the fact that her student loan deferral was expiring. Somehow, in spite of all this financial doom and gloom, this was also the year she had to produce two hundred fifty pages on Xiao-Wen Chou. And not just any two hundred fifty pages-they had to be shockingly original and convincing! Enough to pass muster with her exacting advisor and an even more exacting dissertation committee. Enough to secure her the prestigious postdoc fellowship created in Xiao-Wen Chou's name.

 

But after hundreds of hair-pulling hours spent at the archive, all she had accomplished was fifty pages of scrambled notes on Chou's use of enjambment. Plus an addiction to antacids.

 

Make no mistake, it wasn't as though she hadn't tried. She had come up with ideas of her own! Chou's poetic sprawl representing the eternal inner conflict between eastern selflessness and western individuality. Assimilation into American society in Chou's poetry. The theme of familial deference in Chou's poetry. Chou's poetry and the impossibility of cultural translation. Chou's poetry and the longing for irretrievably lost motherland and mother tongue, etc.

 

The problem was that some other scholar had, of course, already written about it. No other Chinese American poet had been so widely read in America, had been so consistently analyzed and reprinted year after year. The so-called Chinese Robert Frost was taught to students in high schools and colleges all across the country (and occasionally in advanced middle school classes). In every bookstore and library, a good twelve inches of space were devoted to his prolific work. Even those who wanted nothing to do with literature, who could not tell you Chou's name much less how to spell it, had nonetheless come into contact with his poems. In restaurants, dentist offices and middle-class homes, his quotations adorned boxes of tea, wall decorations and watercolor calendars. Xiao-Wen Chou was loved and respected-more so after he passed away from pancreatic cancer seven years ago.

 

What could Ingrid possibly offer on the late canonical poet no one else had? She had memorized Chou's poems backwards and forwards, riffled through innumerable archive boxes, worn out her copy of his

implications of every punchline . . . Chou s novel is a promising debut, one that makes this reader look forward to what she will make fun of next. Leland Cheuk, The Washington Post

This book has so many stifle-a-strangled-laugh lines you might want to refrain from reading it in a library or a train s quiet car. Chou s novel is a send-up of the polite, cardigan-draped white supremacy of liberal arts colleges . . . Between hiring a private investigator, staging a break in, flooding a gender neutral bathroom, and smoking weed with a professor, she uncovers a shocking truth an act of racism in the academic world that had gone unnoticed for decades . . . In an entertaining takedown, Chou explores who the university really belongs to. Glamour

Disorientation is a deeply smart, satirical novel that takes a critical look at racism in academia. Buzzfeed

Chou's debut novel is a searing literary satire of campus politics. Entertainment Weekly

[S]earing satire . . . Chou details her protagonist s struggles with dry humor and wit. Time

Disorientation satirizes academia, PC culture and every other topic it touches, bringing into question the very etymology of its title. Occasionally veering toward absurdity, the novel finds its way back to painful reality in a dizzying-yet-delightful oscillation Though you would never know it from how fun this wild ride is, Disorientation is a seminar bursting with lessons on race, gender and culture, complete with a bibliographical Notes section and everything. Chou clearly did her research. Associated Press

A deft twist on the campus satire. Vulture, Notable New Releases

[Disorientation] is captivating, irresistible, and intensely readable, and what we ultimately come to literature to find . . . It can be difficult to envision a book tackling themes of identity, systemic discrimination, and exclusion as laden with humor, but this book certainly delivers . . . The book expands in scope with each passing page, integrating newer and more experimental forms and swallowing larger subject matter. We begin at the campus novel, at critiques of university hierarchy, and end up considering all of American politics and the evolution of racism, fetishism, and social stratification . . . [W]hat Disorientation shows us is that there is power in the page-turner, that literary merit and a unique, propelling story are not mutually exclusive. Of course, those of us who love reading know this already, but books like this show us that it never hurts to be reminded. Malavika Praseed, Chicago Review of Books

Fans of blistering American satires like Paul Beatty s The Sellout and Charles Yu s Interior Chinatown won t want to miss Elaine Hsieh Chou s electrifying debut Disorientation, which turns the campus novel on its head with its portrait of a Taiwanese American PhD student lost in her own research. Taking on fraught topics like appropriation and the model minority in academia, it goes big in the best way, announcing an exciting new voice. Chicago Review of Books, 12 Must-Read Books of March

Elaine Hsieh Chou s debut Disorientation is an inventive campus novel that satirizes academia in an over-the-top, compulsively readable mystery. . . . Ingrid s identity as a graduate student is central to the novel, and Chou captures this experience expertly the spirit of department politics, the competition between grad students, the deep sense of insecurity in your research, your future, yourself. Her identity is layered with her identity as a Taiwanese American woman; Ingrid s experience with her research subject is complicated by her largely white department and her own experience growing up in a white town. It s this complexity and Ingrid s personal journey over the course of the academic year that makes Disorientation not only an outrageously enjoyable academic mystery, but also a moving portrayal of self-discovery. Ploughshares

[A] deeply smart (and funny) satire on the pressures, power imbalances, and racism within the academic world. theSkimm

Gleefully dark and incisive . . . Chou's examination of the catch-22s faced by Asian Americans, particularly women, straddles the line between satiric and searing . . . Disorientation is the best combination of entertaining and thought-provoking, and Chou is an exciting new voice in novel-length fiction. Shelf Awareness

Chou effectively skewers a world that takes itself all too seriously . . . This will charm a wide set of readers, not just those pursuing PhDs. Publishers Weekly

A fresh, hilarious and thoughtful satire that'll make you think about cultural identity in a whole new way. Good Housekeeping, The 15 Best and Most-Anticipated Books of 2022

Disorientation is an irreverent campus satire that skewers white sclerotic academia, creepy Asian fetishists and twee boba liberalism, but lastly and most importantly, it s a satire, inspired by recent controversies, about an orientalist tradition and its manifestations today. Helmed by a memorable screwball protagonist, the novel is both a joyous and sharply-drawn caper. Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings

Chou s pen is a scalpel. Disorientation addresses the private absurdities the soul must endure to get free, from tokenism, the quiet exploitation of well-meaning institutions, and the bondage that is self-imposed. Chou does it with wit and verve, and no one is spared. Raven Leilani, author of Luster

Disorientation is a multivalent pleasure, a deeply original debut novel that reinvents the campus novel satire as an Asian American literary studies whodunnit, in which the murder victim might be your idea of yourself no matter how you identify. I often held my breath until I laughed and I wouldn't dare compare it or Chou to anyone writing now. Wickedly funny and knowing, Chou s dagger wit is sure-eyed, intent on what feels like a decolonization of her protagonist, if not the reader, that just might set her free. Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Disorientation is the funniest novel I ve read all year . . . This uproarious tale of a young woman s quest to uncover the truth about the world s most famous Chinese American poet is packed full of sly truths about race, love, and life in general all of which you re going to miss, because you ll be laughing so hard. Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger