Inside Out: Reflections on a Life So Far

by Evelyn Lau

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385259387
• ISBN13: 9780385259385
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Anchor Canada
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A masterpiece

Lau is one of a few contemporary authors that I have been interested in for a long period of time, for the unique materials she pursues and her frantic work ethics that bear enormously strong and outstanding works. Every time I access her new work, she never fails to surprise me by the qualities that I have just raised. This collection of essays offered an unusually fulfilling reading experience. The clear, candid and artful on-going report on her life distinguishes herself as a rare talent once again. Lau this time benefits the genre and eloquently articulates a couple of issues that she had not been specific about before. Her examining the issue of racism in Canada was one of them. She mentioned racism she encountered and how the experience formed the minority predicament and the characteristic psyche as she grew up. As a result of it, she always felt inferior and had trouble having confidence in herself. This testimony adds irreplacably valuable vocabularies to minority experiences in North America where is still dominant the Eurocentric standard. Note that she lived it a couple of decades ago, when the phenomena were obviously harsher. All the more, the author's journey of establishing herself as an individual as refusing any conpromises no matter how it got difficult read paradoxically as the universal struggle and the achivement. Although this could give an impression that her works were the rootless hybrid of an Asian-North American English literature, this book is to let the readers discover her not necessarily to be a case of the idiosyncracy. She documented and aknowleddged that she was also a product of the social structure she struggled to belong. In this project, Lau managed to draw a chart to locate the very complex point of where she was situated, and where she would like to move onto. Despite that she had always understated her recognition of the stigma as a woman of color in the society, being marginalized according to her ethnicity and how it ironically contributed to the sensationalism that her first book 'Runaway' needed to provoke---the apparent voyeurism that cater to the average audience in Canada at the time---, in this book, Lau lucidly contemplated that her seemingly uncommon manner of assimilation was somehow a part of the institution that indirectly coerced minorities to assimilate until their identities vanished, ----just as her parents had attempted to render her in the new world. Her confused and complexed love for fatherly men was the metaphorical manifestation of her complex desire of belonging somewhere safer than her own parents, whose power in the society was limited. Those topics in this colleciton such as depression, the recognition that her impossible relationships with men and her asknowledgement how love is practiced on condition of a transaction, the fear and spiritual growth the trial brought about that was filed by her former lover, were neither cheerful nor easy. Stragely enough, though, they are tr

The continuing journey

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who read Runaway and wanted to know what happened to Evelyn Lau. This book tells the reader about what has happened in the 10 years since Runaway was published. She discusses the long-term effects in her life of being a prostitute and the depression that she copes with. The language that Ms. Lau uses to describe her emotions, her perceptions and her thoughts is absolutely beautiful. In my opinion, she is one of the great writers of our time. However, this book is not light reading. It discusses very serious issues and Ms. Lau is not afraid to explore her humanity within the essays that she writes. An excellent book!

i'm much better at reading than writing

but I really loved this book, and felt it needed a review.It's a very quick read, and covers alot of Runaway: diary of a street kid. So some people may not like the repetativness of it.She talks about depression, parents (and her relationship with them) her struggle with prostitution and more.It isn't a happy read, but if like me, you do suffer from depression and like to read something you can identify with it's good.She also talks about herself as a writer, why she writes how she almost stopped..I'm a huge fan of evelyn lau and I wasnt' disapointed by this book.