Author Lindsay Wong brings book club back from break

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/08/2023 (812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Free Press Book Club returns from summer break on Monday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m., with author Lindsay Wong joining the virtual meeting to read from and discuss her memoir The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family.

Published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2018, The Woo-Woo chronicles Wong’s life from youth to young adulthood as a child of Chinese immigrants who believe heavily in the “woo-woo” — ghosts that take over the mind and body during times of turmoil. In actuality, many of Wong’s family members were dealing with severe mental health issues — her grandmother was a paranoid schizophrenic and her mother, aunties and other relatives also struggled heavily with similar symptoms that went mostly untreated as the “woo-woo” was predetermined to be the cause of all problems.

Wong begins to suffer from the “woo-woo” herself, which amplifies when she moves to New York City to pursue a MFA in literary nonfiction, forcing her to return home to Vancouver to seek treatment (for what was ultimately diagnosed as migraine-associated vertigo) before returning to her studies. (Her MFA now completed, Wong recently moved to Winnipeg to teach in the English department at the University of Winnipeg.)

In The Woo-Woo, Wong doesn’t pull any punches; the characterizations of her family, friends and even herself are raw and sometimes cutting, but can also be deeply, darkly funny and vulnerable.

In addition to being a finalist in the 2019 edition of CBC’s Canada Reads, The Woo-Woo was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Hubert Evans Nonfiction prize at the 2019 B.C. Book Prizes and landed on the long list for the Stephen Leackock Memorial Medal for Humour. Wong’s most recent book, the short-story collection Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality, was published in February 2023 by Penguin Canada.

Wong will be joined by Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti, Chris Hall of McNally Robinson Booksellers and Free Press multimedia producer Nadya Pankiw for the virtual book club meeting on Monday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. She will read from The Woo-Woo, discuss her writing and answer questions from viewers and readers.

Copies of The Woo-Woo are available to purchase at McNally Robinson; there is no cost to join the book club and virtual discussion, which will be available to replay after the event on the Free Press YouTube channel.

To join the Free Press Book Club and for more information on current and future book picks, visit Bookclub.