Lee Looks Eastward

Hannah Stephenson

In Jen Sookfong Lee’s first novel, The End of East, she explains the route that ships would take in order to reach Canada from China.  The ships didn’t travel west, but moved eastward, “to the end of east, where the west begins.”  In many ways, Lee’s novel looks eastward.  Much of the novel is set in Vancouver’s Chinatown, which is located in the East Side; east is also the direction of sunrise, of beginnings.  Lee’s main character, Sammy Chan, has returned to her home in Vancouver in order to care for her mother, who cannot live independently.  When she returns to her childhood home, she is forced to investigate her own personal history and the origins of her family.

Lee’s narrative deftly moves in and out of time, as Sammy examines the complex relationships in her family—namely, the co-dependent relationship she shares with her mother.  The novel traces the history of Sammy’s grandparents and parents, as they struggled with racism, immigration, and creating an identity in Vancouver.  Lee’s characters are unrelentingly realistic, and grapple with feeling useless.  Sammy is painfully self-destructive; she’s dropped out of grad school, longs for a boyfriend that she left behind, and finds herself sleeping with a sadistic man who makes her feel “like something inside of [her] has been shaken loose and is rattling around.” Most complex and intriguing is the character of Sammy’s mother, Siu Sang, who had five daughters but was a disappointment as a daughter-in-law, and seems to have suffered from postpartum depression and other undiagnosed mental illness.