Helen is obsessed with gods of destruction in Chinatown, and hereditary fracas in the cosmos, the genealogy of muses, who laugh and cry in the passing of time and the sublimation of her "dim sum days," gorgeous days spent staring at the clock and painting canvases that reflect the coming of the Great Muse, the glorious idolatry of the Chinese sub-culture she loves and detests, the dark men she's come to see as both familiar and foreign. Seeking out the planetary whiz and the mulberry pipe, she's just a fraction of her worth, until she meets Edward Yee, the missing piece in her life story. Together they ransom the bird-cage and make the moon shine until it's just an itty bitty splice scone on a plate amidst a bee-bop holiday jazz tune that's worth the pleasure. "Dim Sum Days" is a contagious work about love and art, holiday trolling and passionate inter-locking, the cosmos at its most vainglorious struggle. Read it with your trisket har gow on a Sunday after-noon while the junk ships are floating across the Kowloon River, the fantasy never-ending.
