The Bridegroom – stories by Ha Jin

THE BRIDEGROOM is a collection of short fiction from National Book Award-winning author of Waiting.  There are twelve stories set in contemporary China in the which men and women struggle with the same issues of quiet desperation, greed, and honesty that we all face.  Ha Jin makes these issues so plain and so recognizable in his very simply set out society that we are immediately aware and continue on with the story waiting to see what path the character will take.  Whatever path it is, we are made to understand it and empathize with the person and his/her struggle to reach a decision.  There seems to be no actual right or wrong, but only circumstance, family, loyalty, and all the bits and pieces of upbringing and experience that make people what they are and who can judge the right or wrong of that.

We have a man who finds himself arrested for the “bourgeois crime” of homosexuality.  Another story centers on a man who loses his memory and lives for months as a simple worker.  Then upon returning to his old life finds himself an inconvenience to his family!  Also, a piece about a workers’ strike gone wrong through a misunderstanding of how things are handled in an American run company.  I won’t give you any more hints.  You’ve got to read these stories yourself.  They are all superb.

The Bridegroom is an exciting work of short fiction and I recommend it. 

 Ha Jin has previously won the Hemingway/PEN Award for first fiction for his story collection Ocean of Words and the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction for Under the Red Flag.  Among his many awards, in 2004 he won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his novel War Trash.