All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey by Teresa Wong. Arsenal Pulp, 2024. 9781551529493. 238pp.
Teresa Wong’s graphic memoir starts with her visiting her mother in the hospital after her mother had a minor stroke. When her mother doesn’t speak she fills the silence. When she has to translate for her mother, we get to experience the limited way Teresa can express herself in Cantonese. Wong then explains that she doesn’t know the Cantonese words to help her mother, or the words to use to talk about feelings; it’s heartbreaking, but also the perfect expression of her relationship with her parents. And the rest of the book is the story of that relationship, of growing up in Canada with her immigrant parents. It’s the story of how they communicated and didn’t, of how her parents fled China for Hong Kong and eventually settled in Calgary.
My favorite part is probably when Wong’s mother brings home another “daughter,” a young woman whom she worked with, and the way Wong tries to understand her mother. But the most heartbreaking thing about the book was the ongoing lack of compassion from her mom. It’s amazing to me that she continued to try to reach across the divide that separates them, and that she is trying to tell their story.
Worth noting: if you pick up the book, watch how Wong changes the layouts of the pages. They’re often basic grids, but they always serve the story, and when she needs to she’ll suddenly use a different drawing style or a bunch of white space. It’s perfect.
