The Eve of the Spirit Festival (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Lan Samantha Chang
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Plot: Ghost story
- Time of Work: The 1980's through the early 1990's
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: Claudia, Emily, Her father (“Baba”), Her mother, Brad Delmonte
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Discrimination, New York, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Parents and children, Tradition, Twentieth century, New York City, Ghosts or apparitions, Manners or customs, Fathers, Sisters, Duty, Death or dying, Funeral rites or ceremonies, 1990’s, Generation gap, Chinese Americans, Buddhism
- Locales: New York, NY
The Story
“The Eve of the Spirit Festival” is a tightly constructed ghost story about two young Chinese American women dealing with the death of their parents. When they are little, their mother dies, forever changing their relationship with their father as they grow up. Once they have become young adults, his death and reappearance as a ghost to the older sister brings the story to a striking close.
The story opens as the girls’ mother, who has died from an unspecified illness, has been cremated as part of a Buddhist ceremony. Sitting on the living-room floor of...
[The entire page is 1494 words long]
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