You Have Five Pages, Joan is Okay by Weike Wang, To Tell Me You're Good.

The first chapter can make or break a reader's engagement with a story. We as writers must craft brilliant opening pages in order to hook those picky readers, so let's study the stories of others to see how they do it! The first pages of Joan is Okay by Weike Wang are unlike anything we've read on previous episodes of this podcast. We're not diving into genre fiction here--no fantasy, no science fiction, no horror, etc. This is life, and it's the life of an Asian American woman who is forced to take on the journey of grief by returning to China for her father's funeral. The prose is sharp and cuts to the bone in its lack of emotion, which makes readers wonder just what the relationship between the narrator and her family had been. As one who also lost her father suddenly, the journey of grief is not an easy one to walk alone, so I am naturally drawn to Wang's storytelling here. What will you, fellow creatives, make of these first five pages? Let's find out!