"They tried to live as they had in Berkeley, in an improvisational community, their doors open to anyone."

"But things started to go missing, and it was unclear whether their neighbors also believed in communal sharing or if they were taking advantage of the Kingstons. Kahalu’u is on the island’s windward side, and Maxine, like many Chinese people who believe that wind disturbs one’s qi, or life-force equilibrium, found the constant gusts distressing. She couldn’t think.... In the seventies, publishers had begun responding to America’s social realities by offering challenging, textured depictions of what it meant to be part of a minority. 'The Woman Warrior,' which was marketed as a memoir based on Kingston’s upbringing, seemed to adhere to typical preconceptions—the cascading effects of patriarchal traditions, the stern and unaffectionate immigrant parents, the children caught between duty and dreaming. But, unlike most ethnic coming-of-age tales of the time, it seeded doubt about its own authenticity.... By the end, you don’t know which, if any, of these stories are true, or whether they constitute a reliable depiction of Chinese-American life.... I thought about what Kingston had said.... A writer is always alone.... These sketches of her life weren’t for anyone but her. They were not... 'a story to grow on'.... 'It’s really enjoying my present life... I am really enjoying going to buy that winter melon. I’m deeply into it..... I’m so sane in my work. That’s why it’s fiction.'"

From "Maxine Hong Kingston’s Genre-Defying Life and Work/The Asian-American literary pioneer, whose writing has paved the way for many immigrants’ stories, has one last big idea" (The New Yorker).