Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

by Jane Wong Narrated by Jane Wong

Overview

An Audible Best Memoir Audiobook of 2023

An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

In the late 1980s on the Jersey shore, Jane Wong watches her mother shake ants from an MSG bin behind the family's Chinese restaurant. She is a hungry daughter frying crab rangoon for lunch, a child sneaking naps on bags of rice, a playful sister scheming to trap her brother in the freezer before he traps her first. She is part of a family staking their claim to the American dream, even as this dream crumbles. Beneath Atlantic City's promise lies her father's gambling addiction, an addiction that causes him to disappear for days and ultimately leads to the loss of the restaurant.

In her debut memoir, Wong tells a new story about Atlantic City, one that resists a single identity, a single story, as she writes about making do with what you have-and what you don't. What does it mean, she asks, to be both tender and angry? What is strength without vulnerability-and humor? Filled with beauty found in unexpected places, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is a resounding love song of the Asian American working class, a portrait of how we become who we are, and a story of lyric wisdom to hold and to share.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal - Audio

06/10/2024

Wong grew up in New Jersey in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the child of Chinese immigrants chasing the American dream. Through a series of vignettes, she shares glimpses into her life. She draws on her gift as a published poet, inviting listeners to share her experiences through her lyrical, descriptive prose. She tackles each scene with fervor, relaying memories of playing hide-and-seek with her brother (trying to see if she could trick him into entering her family's restaurant's walk-in freezer), abusive moments with an ex, times when she accompanied her mother through Chinatown's shady dental trade, and racist interactions with strangers. Wong narrates the recording herself, imparting the nuance and gravitas that can only come from someone intimately familiar with their own words. Her story is beautiful and heartbreaking, interwoven with the theme of love for her mother. The poetic, episodic format may be a challenge for listeners used to a narrative-style memoir, but this is a treat for readers seeking a collage of memories and stories. VERDICT A uniquely told story full of vibrant characters and heart-wrenching emotion, this is a surefire recommendation for any library where memoirs and poetry circulate well.—Katy Duperry

Publishers Weekly

★ 04/24/2023

In this delightful memoir in essays, Chinese American poet Wong (How to Not Be Afraid of Everything) reflects on her experiences growing up on the Jersey Shore as the child of immigrants and later life as an English professor. In the title piece, Wong uses the image of a bank of Chinese tourist buses wending its way toward Atlantic City to set the stage for her family life: Wong’s parents operated a Chinese restaurant on the Shore, whose operations were eventually hampered by her father’s gambling addiction and alcoholism. The hilarious “Give Us Our Crowns” sees Wong’s mother entering Wong in Miss Preteen New Jersey, giving the author the opportunity to ruminate on the impact of Western beauty ideals on Chinese women. In “Bad Bildungsroman with Table Tennis,” Wong sharply recounts her father’s obsessions with Ping-Pong, including his purchase of an expensive table despite the family’s financial struggles, nimbly balancing humor and heartbreak. Wong cannily addresses racism in academia and the long arc of finding her identity as a poet in several essays, most notably in the final piece, “Astonished Enough?” in which she traces the personal and historical barriers that have stood between her and a writing career. With a poet’s ear for language and a satirist’s eye for human foibles, Wong masterfully marries her personal story with larger questions about Chinese American identity. This is a winner. (May)

Kyle Lucia Wu

"Searing, stunning, and singular."

Booklist

"Unfiltered…. [an] aching, angry, surprisingly funny portrait of a poet demanding, fighting, and eating her way to self-acceptance and earned recognition."

Good Morning America

"With a strong sense of place and voice, heart and soul, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City delivers a fresh take on the Asian American working class — and one woman's journey to understanding her past."

Elissa Washuta

"My favorite aphorism about New Jersey is that only the strong survive it. I see that place here in all its chaotic splendor and that strength in the carving marks on each finely cut image. This is a perfect and glimmering book that could only have been forged in Jane Wong’s bloody and beautiful heart."

Chicago Review of Books

"One of the standout memoirs of 2023 thus far. . . . Alive with the beauty that comes with looking back on one’s life with grace and new understanding."

Los Angeles Review of Books

"In a soaring poetic voice layered across word-worlds of varying textures, from photographs to drawings to text-message conversations to an intense nonfiction index. . . . Jane Wong’s Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City transcends the genre of memoir."

Sally Wen Mao

"Jane Wong, with her poet’s eye for precise and delightful detail, carves out a quintessential story of family, gambling, loss, heartaches, toothaches, and above all, love. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City takes a father’s addiction to the prismatic casinos of Atlantic City and places it against a mother’s fierce, unsparing devotion and a daughter’s struggle to make sense of loss. I love the tenderness and ferocity of her prose, unsentimental and wrenching, that refuses easy triumph in its immigrant story and isn’t afraid of uncovering both beauty and brutality. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is, at heart, a love story between Wong and her mother, Wong and herself."

From the Publisher

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD

The New York Times Book Review

"[Wong] paints her story with flourish."

Ms. Magazine

"More than a story of immigration or of one US city, it explores the complexities of life and the dichotomies of emotion and experience that can occur within a single person."

The Washington Post

"Joyful. . . . lyrical. . . . Wong’s memoir invites those who have been overlooked in America to hold up their verses, accolades and solidarity in a collective rejoinder to their detractors."

Book Riot

"Wonderful. . . . an honest and forgiving recollection of a childhood. . . . perfect for fans of Seeing Ghosts and Stay True."

Ploughshares

"An honest look at a working-class community that is too often forgotten. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City refuses summary with its sprawling essays of how love, community, and writing make us resilient."

The Rumpus

"Written with poetic lyricism laced with rage and humor. . . . What shines through in Wong’s memoir is the beacon of her mother’s indefatigable optimism and trust in others in the face of a multitude of hardships."

Book Page

"Gorgeous. . . . dense with beautiful sensory images, particularly of food. In her own indelible way, Wong records her coming of age and finding her place in her family, in poetry and in the world."

Bustle

"Wong writes with candor, vexation, and compassion."

Victoria Chang

"To borrow Jane Wong’s own words, there are sparks coming off Wong’s blade of language. The spunky voice in this memoir shines through. I’m so grateful to Wong for telling her unique story in only the way she can, and in the process, expanding the possibilities of Asian American stories. There’s so much heart in these stories that explore race, class, and family history, that we can’t help but root for the protagonist. This is a big-hearted coming-of-age book that simultaneously asks hard questions."

She Reads

"Resists a single identity. It’s about making do with what you have and don’t have and finding beauty in unexpected places. It’s a loving portrait of the Asian American working class."

Independent Book Review

"Humorous and honest and lyrical. . . . This story of making a life with what you have is one that will stick with you."

Morgan Parker

"In Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, Jane Wong mines her life with a poet's comb, examining even its frayed, messy edges in breathtaking detail, and shining light on its most intimately vulnerable questions. A thoughtful, vivid storyteller with formidable lyricism, Wong has written a spectacular ode to the words and women that raised her."

Cup of Jo - Joanna Goddard

"I love a good memoir, and I’m looking forward to poet Jane Wong’s Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, about growing up in a Chinese restaurant on the Jersey shore."

The Los Angeles Times

"Her story is about surviving with what you have and what you don’t—and also a love letter to Atlantic City and the Asian American working class."

Hippocampus Magazine

"Sizzles with originality and with heart."

Crosscut

"Thick with poetic imagery. . . . There’s an urgency here, a gobbling speed that matches the intensity of the flavors spilling out of the restaurant kitchen."

I'm a Writer But

"The abundance and the beauty and the bounty that is this book completely blew me away. . . . It’s so crisp, clear and evocative and just a joy to read."

Full Stop

"Essential. . . . an original immigrant story that is also universal."

Purewow

"About growing up working class, Wong’s path to forgiving her father, dealing with abusive and toxic men and the beauty of mother-daughter relationships."

The Boston Globe

"Blazing, lyrical. . . . A tender love letter."

Kirkus Reviews

2023-01-28
A poet’s memoir about her working-class childhood, writing career, family, and Asian American identity.

Despite the fact that Wong’s father gambled away the family's Chinese restaurant in New Jersey when she was still quite young, the feeling of being a "restaurant baby" is central to this book. "I am that person who thinks that the compost bin is beautiful, in all its swirls of color (jade mold, chocolate slime—why is no one hiring me to name nail polish?), surprising texture, and piquant death,” she writes. After her father lost the restaurant and left the family, her mother became a postal worker, sorting mail overnight into and through the pandemic. If there is a single topic that unifies the book, it's her mother. A series of passages labeled “wongmom.com” imagines that her mother's wisdom might be available online, including things like her take on an "ancient Chinese saying”—“If you can’t crawl, swim. If you can’t swim, then take the bus.” Wong's sharp sense of humor is fueled by a healthy dose of righteous anger, and her lyric energy bursts from almost every sentence. In the chapter titled "Bad Bildungsroman With Table Tennis,” she writes, "Part of being a teenager is the desire to destroy something. To break something apart so fully, you can see its pulled seams, its tangled organs. At 13, I felt this feeling churn within me, this rage, this pim­ple-popping lusciousness of rudeness, this gleaming desire for sudden destruction." She writes candidly about her shoplifting phase, her misery at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and her disgust for bigotry and cultural appropriation. A good portion of the book focuses on finding her confidence as an Asian American poet, including the glorious moment when she was recognized with a big grant and a museum show. For this profoundly unsqueamish writer, poetry is "interior slime spicy along our tongues" and "chicken grease congealing behind my ear."

A generous, steaming stew of a book loaded with personality and originality and sprinkled with the fiery chili of rage.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192593264
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	05/16/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

MEET ME TONIGHT IN ATLANTIC CITY

Let’s begin here: on the ground. Or rather on the slabs of wood above the ground. In July, 1854, a New Jersey tourist train from Camden made its inaugural voyage to Atlantic City. Tourists came to stick their toes in the Atlantic Ocean—steel blue, the color of whales they’d never see. They came to lean against each other in the high dunes and make promises they couldn’t keep. They let the wind lift those promises up, caught in the chandeliers of expensive hotels or the beaks of passing seagulls. The women who came held frilled umbrellas—jellyfish along the shore. And when they returned to their jobs and errands and thumb-sucking babies, they carried sand with them, making the train car a beach in and of itself. Glitter of the sea. This is how the boardwalk came to be: a frustrated railroad conductor and simply too much sand for his own sweeping sanity. On June 16, 1870, boards were erected, 10 feet wide and 12 feet long.

Just to be clear: this is not our story. Not yet. Our story moves across that steel-blue fantasy, onto another continent, toward a place where there is no such thing as “vacation.” My ancestors will stare at that word, 假期, as if it were a cloud that could disappear at any point. On this continent, there are herds of oxen and lily pads the size of promises that can’t be made. As a small child, I dreamt of this story. Of an ox and my mother riding its back, the hair on its hide so coarse, it makes your throat hurt. Our story, our history, is a different Atlantic City.

It is 1988 and my mother is still dreaming in Toisanese—not a single word of English worms its way through her open-mouth sleep world. My little brother, Steven, had just been born, howling like a wolf who knew he was a boy. Four years earlier, when the nurses placed me in my mother’s arms, I stared at her silently. She held me up to the fluorescent hospital light and declared: “I’m afraid. She knows too much.” By 1988, my father had been holding illegal mahjong gambling circles for five years, often in the basement. Cigarette smoke escaped like doves from underneath the floorboards. And the shuffling. The shuffling sound of mahjong tiles, a porcelain earthquake. I learned later that some of these tiles used to be made out of bone or bamboo. Now: Bakelite, plastic. My father always invited the same people to play with him: the Chicken Bone Man, City Uncle, and Balding Uncle. His friends always played with toothpicks dangling out of their mouths, moving the sticks from side to side in concentration. My brother and I named the crew the Toothpick Gang.

Just to be clear again: our story is not about small enterprises. Our story goes beyond the small batons of $20 bills passed around the mahjong table. Beyond the table’s green felt, stained with cheap Tsingtao and sky-high piles of gnawed bones from the Chicken Bone Man’s self-evident pastime.

Our story is Atlantic City. We are talking about the Taj Mahal, Caesars, Bally’s. Casinos depicting worlds my father simply couldn’t fathom. At Caesars, there were towering white columns so extravagant they held up nothing at all. There were white statues of horses braying, a ceiling painted like the sky with white clouds, the busts of white people we assumed were famous but were really just white. My parents didn’t even know where Rome was on a map or that Rome existed. But Caesars was gleaming in its whiteness. Who could say no to the patina of wealth?

This is how we arrived: on that Chinese tourist bus where you have to fan yourself with your $10 gambling voucher and put your cigarette out in a Dixie cup. Or, if you hit it big like we once did, you can arrive in the dolphin-colored leather of your BMW, before you inevitably crash it into the Garden State Parkway median. No air-conditioning and the windows down, to save on gas mileage, of course. We arrived over a century later on a boardwalk full of non-white faces. Shoulder pads, pinstriped suits, and an amalgamation of languages punctuating the salty air. The poor, the working class, the hopeful in red-tag sequin dresses from Marshalls. Here we are! Yes, here, with self-serve wine and crab legs at the Palace Court Buffet—all of which we marveled at, but never touched.

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