The Woo-Woo

Inthis jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in adysfunctional Asian family who blame their woes on ghosts and demons when theyshould really be on anti-psychotic meds.

 Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoidschizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the "woo-woo"Chineseghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessedthe woo-woo's sinister effects; when she was six, Lindsay and her motheravoided the dead people haunting their house by hiding out in a mall food court,and on a camping trip, in an effort to rid her daughter of demons, her mothertried to light Lindsay's foot on fire.

 The eccentricities take a dark turn,however, when her aunt, suffering from a psychotic breakdown, holds the cityhostage for eight hours when she threatens to jump off a bridge. And whenLindsay starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonderswhether she will suffer the same fate as her family.

At once a witty and touching memoir about theAsian immigrant experience and a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagariesof mental illness, The Woo-Woo is agut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself.