Superfan by Jen Sookfong Lee

A sharply observed and moving memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage.

For most of Jen Sookfong Lee's life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her.Anne of Green Gablespromised her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams, and Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like her the child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing model minority myths.

Ranging from the unattainable perfection of Gwyneth Paltrow and the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, to the long shadow cast byThe Joy Luck Cluband the life lessons she has learned from Rihanna, Jen weaves together key moments in pop culture with stories of her own failings, longings, and struggles as she navigates the minefields that come with carving her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer.

And with great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, she draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions. (FromMcClelland & Stewart)

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Jen Sookfong Leeis a writer from Vancouver. Her books includeThe Conjoined,which was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize;The Better Mother,which was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award;The End of East;andFinding Home.

Interviews with Jen Sookfong Lee

The Next Chapter21:06Jen Sookfong Lee on Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart

The Vancouver novelist Jen Sookfong Lee on her memoir Superfan, where she shares her loves and losses through the lens of pop culture.

Other books by Jen Sookfong Lee