Dutiful Illuminations in the Dark
All Our Ordinary Stories, A Multigenerational Family Odyssey, Teresa Wong. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024.
Pages/panels are excerpted from All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey by Teresa Wong, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
I would be remiss to omit how I first became acquainted with Teresa Wong’s memoir writing: I read Dear Scarlet in chunks on my smartphone via the Libby app last year through a particularly sleep-deprived time as a first-time mother. During the brief respite between newborn night-wakes, I absorbed the tenderness that sprang out of those clean, monochromatic panels. Upon my re-read during the clearer hours of the day, I was moved by the quiet yet honest way Wong addresses difficult subject matter.
The same rings true for All Our Ordinary Stories. Wong has a gift for gently holding the reader’s hand as she takes us into the depths of perseverance and struggle, first into the throes of motherhood with Dear Scarlet, and now here into a “legacy of longing.” Wong’s calm yet steady narrative offers her personal and family history — a series of meaningful beginnings — in this second triumph.
Wong’s desire to connect with her parents, particularly her mother, is revealed without pretence through unspoken layers of yearning. As she attempts to uncover the unknown — and reconciles with an unattainable intimacy — we see the gravity of that disconnect each time Wong uses two-letter utterances:
I wanted to tell her I loved her and needed her. I, too, had been
through this kind of darkness, and together we’d find a way
through it.
“Oh.”
But I couldn’t say any of that in Chinese. (23)
In this sense, Wong’s white spaces are quite full (See figure 1).
At the opening of the section “Motherland,” Wong’s skillfully shifts style as her family’s history unfolds. The first panel is of an intricate ceremonial outfit. As we move through the narrative, Wong depicts propaganda material, maps, news clippings, and documents. Wong does justice to this material by departing temporarily from her dominant minimalist visual style and leaning into these details, encouraging the reader to slow down and take it all in.
When she illustrates her mother and father’s respective treacherous journeys out of China, Wong’s confident use of black augments the dangers of the dark. In a black-and-white book, this can be hard to pull off without real intentions behind it. As we see her mother’s journey across the water with her companion, the darkness provides a sense of danger while punctuating their smallness (See figure 2).
What’s more, although the page is filled with a stark and foreboding blackness, it perfectly conveys the theme exploring the unreachable parts of the family stories. We can only wonder what went through her mother’s head during this journey, just as Wong does.
While each immigrant experience is unique, there were a few gems in this book that touched me right at my Canadian-raised core. One such moment occurs during her trip to Hong Kong shortly after her marriage:
“Westerners don’t really understand the value of jade.”
It was not directed at anyone in particular, but I couldn’t help but think he meant me. (117)
It’s such a small moment in the book, but that feeling of being on the outside had me nodding soberly. It’s something I know all too well. I can imagine so many first- and second-generation immigrants have felt and quietly internalized these complex, lingering inadequacies.
Wong’s perspective holds a retrospective, almost detached quality, which suits the overall message of the memoir. Wong is a keen observer who has seems to have spent much of her life putting aside her feelings. As such, the temperament of this memoir is appropriately cool. Anyone seeking a book rife with heated confrontations, powder-keg emotions, or revelatory outbursts ought to look elsewhere. However, when we do see a rare moment of unfiltered and raw emotion here, it is that much more resonating.
I came to this memoir as an essayist who could barely draw, but I found myself tracing some of the panels into my daily journal so that I could revisit the beautiful imagery via my own personalized (albeit very inelegant) sketching. I felt privileged to be given this window into her unique experience, and I felt seen as a daughter of immigrants.
While there were aspects of her parents’ history I was piqued to know more about, Wong looks away with respectful discretion. Finding a way to honour her parents’ and extended family’s privacy while giving the reader thoughtful insight within the context of her personal journey was surely no easy task, but she manages it well.
Between full pages and blank spaces, Teresa Wong gracefully illuminates the precious knowledge she coaxed out of great darkness.
— Nadine Bachan writes about family and culture, and is working on a memoir.
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