{"id":433599,"date":"2026-08-15T07:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433599\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T07:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:58:23","slug":"a-san-francisco-novel-with-an-unexpected-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433599\/","title":{"rendered":"A San Francisco novel with an unexpected hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What is the Chinese groove? Eighteen-year-old Shelley Zheng is\u00a0hoping\u00a0this ability to understand one another through a shared cultural value of quietly saving face is what will help him adjust to living in America. Shelley\u2019s immigrant experience\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0what he imagined. His father and Cousin Deng promise him\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0be living with his rich uncle who owns the most beautiful department store in all of San Francisco. Shelley is sure his usefulness and reverence for his elders will allow him room and board indefinitely in his uncle\u2019s home, despite only being promised two weeks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kathryn Ma portrays San Francisco in\u00a0all of\u00a0its 2015 glory. Shelley meets the diverse chosen family of his uncle Ted and Jewish wife Aviva and their close friends, a lesbian couple and young son. He embeds himself in this family and his great uncle\u2019s life as a caregiver. Ma illuminates the struggle of immigrants working under-the-table restaurant jobs, renting beds by the hour for\u00a0rest\u00a0or sleeping in their cars while trying to take classes during the day. She shows us the cookie cutter \u201csalthouses\u201d of the foggy Sunset and the mysterious arson burning out families in the Mission. Ma brings to light the corruption of an SF city supervisor and anti-Asian violence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a novel about processing grief. Shelley is still mourning the loss of his mother and the version of his father who used to tell stories. His aunt and uncle are mourning the loss of their child and mother\/mother-in-law to gun violence. The tense relationship, perhaps\u00a0as a result of\u00a0the Chinese groove silence, between father and son is depicted between both Shelley and his father and his uncle Ted and his father Henry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shelley\u2019s experience moves from an expected sense of belonging, to not belonging to complete belonging, feelings relatable to being a newcomer. Throughout the novel, I found myself annoyed with Shelley\u2019s American family. I wanted him to be taken care of and supported through his struggles especially when he finds himself homeless, and yet Shelley\u2019s grace, persistence and work ethic win over those around him as he realizes the Peach Blossom Land he imagined is a far cry from that dream.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Does the Chinese Groove work for Shelley? The ending is pleasantly\u00a0unexpected\u00a0and I was surprisingly satisfied with the fate of these quirky and endearing characters. Shelley is an unexpected and unassuming\u00a0protagonist\u00a0and I found myself entertained and charmed by him. Pick up this truly San Francisco novel and cheer for Shelley!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chalida <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is the Chinese groove? Eighteen-year-old Shelley Zheng is\u00a0hoping\u00a0this ability to understand one another through a shared cultural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-433599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}