SOURCE: A review of Monkey King, in Time, Vol. 149, No. 18, May 5, 1997, p. 101.

[In the following review, Farley praises Chao's reliance on details to build a powerful and meaningful story in Monkey King.]

Chao's intermittently witty and highly readable Monkey King … deals with menial illness, mysticism and sexual abuse. The narrator, 28-year-old Sally Wang, is a Chinese-American woman who has just suffered a mental breakdown. The book's power comes not from some wild psychological portrait of a mind in turmoil but from its careful detailing of Sally's life at the mental institution in which she attempts a recovery. Sally's family history is also nuanced and believable; small observations add up. Recalling her childhood, Sally says, "Because my parents had not been prepared for a girl, I had no name for the first two months of my life."

Sally's breakdown is prompted partly by her assimilation anxiety as the child...