Homebase (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Shawn Hsu Wong
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Plot: Bildungsroman
- Time of Work: The 1950’s and the 1960’s
- Setting: Guam and the Western United States
- Principal Characters: Rainsford Chan, Bobby Chan, Rainsford’s mother, Rainsford’s grandfather, Rainsford’s great-grandfather, Rainsford’s uncle, Rainsford’s aunt, Rainsford’s “dream-bride,”
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: 1950’s, 1960’s, Self-discovery, Parents and children, Multiculturalism, San Francisco, Orphans or orphanages, Asian Americans, China or Chinese people, Chinese Americans
- Locales: San Francisco, CA, Berkeley, CA, Guam
The Novel
Homebase is a novel about fifteen-year-old Rainsford Chan, a fourth-generation Chinese American struggling to establish his identity both as a person and as an American. The central events of his life, and the ones with which the narrative is most concerned, are the deaths of his father (when Rainsford is seven years old) and of his mother (when he is fifteen).
The novel is divided into five chapters, each of which has a generous number of what might be called “speculative flashbacks.” Rainsford never knew his grandfather or great-grandfather, and he...
[The entire page is 2426 words long]
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