One morning, 11 year-old Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon . . . and then never comes home. There's no trace of her at all. With his mother gone, Deming is left with no other family and is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town in upstate New York, and who also rename him Daniel Wilkinson. This is a poignant story of a boy who struggles to find his footing in a new world, while trying to understand why his mother left, and how he can reconcile who he is at heart. It's also an unflinching look at the difficult decisions a mother faces, and then how she has to live with the mistakes of her past.
I found this to be an insightful and compelling book, even though I at times find the main character to be very frustrating. It's understandable that Deming/Daniel struggles to find how he fits in to the world around him (although I sometimes wanted to give him a good shake). The author weaves together narratives from Deming and his mother, moving back and forth in time to give layers of perspective. At first, you cannot understand why his mother left him. However, when you discover the truth, it's awful and you wonder why it wasn't obvious at the beginning, even as you realize that you didn't want to think that that's what happened to her. This novel does an exemplary job of exploring what it means to be a family, self-identify and exploration, and the duality of lives, especially through adoption.
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