Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

2024 PNBA Award Winner

"[Wong] paints her story with flourish."—The New York Times

"A love letter to Atlantic City and the Asian American working class."— The Los Angeles Times

"Blazing, lyrical."—The Boston Globe

"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

 An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

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 her 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.
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Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

2024 PNBA Award Winner

"[Wong] paints her story with flourish."—The New York Times

"A love letter to Atlantic City and the Asian American working class."— The Los Angeles Times

"Blazing, lyrical."—The Boston Globe

"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

 An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

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 her 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.
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Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

by Jane Wong
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

by Jane Wong

eBook

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Overview

2024 PNBA Award Winner

"[Wong] paints her story with flourish."—The New York Times

"A love letter to Atlantic City and the Asian American working class."— The Los Angeles Times

"Blazing, lyrical."—The Boston Globe

"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

 An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

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 her 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781953534743
Publisher: Tin House Books
Publication date: 05/16/2023
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 553,366
File size: 8 MB

About the Author

Jane Wong is the author of the poetry collections How to Not Be Afraid of Everything and Overpour. An associate professor of creative writing at Western Washington University, she grew up in New Jersey and currently lives in Seattle, Washington.


Read an Excerpt

An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

Table of Contents

Contents:
Dragon Fruit
Chapter 1: Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City
Wongmom.com
Chapter 2: Root Canal Street19
Ghost Archive
Chapter 3: A Cheat Sheet for Restaurant Babies
Ghost Archive (Look)
Chapter 4: Give Us Our Crowns
White Hair
Chapter 5: A Jane by Any Other Name
Guts
Chapter 6: Bad Bildungsroman with Table Tennis
The Watcher
Chapter 7: The Object of Love
Wongmom.com (Don’t Mess with Me)
Chapter 8: To Love a Mosquito
An Ancient Chinese Saying
Chapter 9: The Thief
Nocturnal Forces
Chapter 10: Snow, Rain, Heat, Pandemic, Gloom of Night
Ghost Archive (Look Again)
Chapter 11: Finding the Bloodline
Wongmom.com (Fertilizer)
Chapter 12: Astonished Enough?
Mangoes Forever
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
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