Couple Seven Year Laowai reviews are up.
First, from Sharlene Almond:
A true story based on Travis’ life when he worked as a teacher in china …Because it is quite short and more of a short biography than a novel, it is difficult to get fully immersed into the storyline.
I’m not sure what to make of this. Is it fiction? (The author called it literary fiction when it was sent to me and the disclaimer at the beginning says it is fictional. The book retailer sites have it classified that way.) Is it a memoir? (The book description makes it appear so and it reads like it). The author’s bio makes either seem possible.
Notice a trend?
It’s not a memoir. I’m not fifty-year old alcoholic ex-Math teacher, and I did not spend seven years in China, I was there for roughly two and a half.
This isn’t Valley of the Dolls. 7YL is a small part of Little Red King, a much larger story, and it is not a memoir. If it were, if I included every little thing I did in China, the book would be over 4,000 pages long and nobody would ever read it.
