Review: The satirical absurdity of Chou's 'Disorientation'

Ingrid Yang’s future is laid out cleanly before her: Get her Ph.D., marry her fiancé and get a tenure-track teaching job

“Disorientation” by Elaine Hsieh Chou (Penguin Press)

Ingrid Yang’s future is laid out cleanly before her: Get her Ph.D., marry her fiancé, get a tenure-track teaching job and eventually retire and die of old age. Her dissertation topic is, of course, the canonical Chinese American poet Xiao-Wen Chou — even though she’s Taiwanese American and has no real interest in his boring, straightforward style of verse.

But when a wrench is thrown into the equation, Ingrid’s life enters a disorienting spiral that brings her very self into question.

Elaine Hsieh Chou’s debut novel “Disorientation” is funny from the get-go, in the kind of humor that is uncomfortable and sits in that discomfort until you have to at least chuckle.