Overview: Editorial Review

This piquant, irresistible first novel explores the complex relationship between a mother and a daughter, a daughter's reluctant homecoming to a family she couldn't wait to leave...and her own sexual awakening....

Eating Chinese Food Naked

Surprisingly world-weary for twenty-two, Ruby Lee is stunned to find herself back home at Lee's Hand Laundry in Queens after graduating from Columbia University. Restless and searching, she's suddenly forced to confront the family and emotions she tried to escape, especially her deep and protective love for her mother, a gentle, resilient woman who is emotionally estranged from Ruby's bossy, cigar-smoking father.

The laundry parcels crowding the family living room, the distraction of her mother's Chinese cooking, and the sexual fantasies that envelop her combine to overwhelm Ruby. Sometimes the need for comfort returns her to the bed of her on-again, off-again boyfriend; at other times she finds herself wandering from café to Manhattan café, seeking the one affair that might relieve her anxiety. As she struggles to make a coherent picture of the clashing pieces of her life, Ruby at last begins to face reality as it is -- and not what she wishes it could be.