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Bad Bad Girl

A Novel

Author Gish Jen On Tour
Ebook
Knopf
On sale Oct 21, 2025 | 352 Pages | 9780593803745
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The award-winning author of The Resisters returns with an engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.

My mother had died, but still I heard her voice. . .

Gish’s mother, Loo Shu-hsin, is born in 1924 to a wealthy Shanghai family whose girls are expected to restrain themselves. Her beloved nursemaid—far more loving to than her real mother—is torn from her even as she is constantly reprimanded: “Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!” Sent to a modern Catholic school by her progressive father, she receives not only an English name—Agnes—but a first-rate education. To his delight, she excels. But even then he can only sigh, “Too bad. If you were a boy, you could accomplish a lot.” Agnes finds solace in books and, in 1947, announces her intention to pursue a PhD in America. As the Communist revolution looms, she sets sail—never to return.

Lonely and adrift in New York, she begins dating Jen Chao-Pe, an engineering student. They do their best to block out the increasingly dire plight of their families back home and successfully establish a new American life: Marriage! A house in the suburbs! A number one son! By the time Gish is born, though, the news from China is proving inescapable; their marriage is foundering; and Agnes, confronted with a strong-willed, outspoken daughter distinctly reminiscent of herself, is repeating the refrain—“Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!”—as she recapitulates the harshness of her own childhood.

Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written: genre-bending, courageous, wise, and as immensely incisive as it is compassionate.
“Moving and healing.” —Marion Winik, Boston Globe

“Sharp and compassionate. . . . Some relationships are so complex that truth can’t do them justice.” —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

“What an amazing f***ing novel, wild like love and twice as revealing. Gish Jen has written the multigenerational mother-daughter epic of our new century. Bad Bad Girl spans decades, oceans, continents, generations, languages, showing us we can escape almost anything—except the voices of our parents. Intergenerational mother-daughter mayhem of the absolute best smartest vexing most moving kind.” —Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

★ “Astute and revelatory. . . . Throughout, the author blends sharp-witted autofiction with powerful images. . . . This is striking.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ "A great novelist distills the truth of her mother’s life, and her own. . . . Lively. . . . Fully three-dimensional. . . . As portraits of tough mother-daughter relationships go, it’s as moving as they come.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

★ “Heartbreaking and stunning.” —Library Journal (starred)

★ “A uniquely faceted, cross-cultural mother-daughter drama of anguish, fracture, determination, humor, loyalty, and love. . . . Ravishingly vivid.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)

★ “Singular. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Strikingly authentic. . . . Both deeply personal and universally resonant. . . . Jen’s prose is precise, elegant, and often witty in a way that acts as a balm. . . . Bad Bad Girl is a powerful reminder that while death may silence voices, it cannot extinguish the conversations that continue in our hearts and minds. This book is imperative for anyone interested in immigrant experiences, the complexities of family, and the art of writing personal history.” —Elizabeth DeNoma, Shelf Awareness (starred)

“Gish Jen is the absolute master of extremely funny devastation.” —Jessie Gaynor, LitHub

“Reading Bad Bad Girl, I felt a deep ache for mothers and daughters divided by culture and silence. Gish Jen writes tenderly about a woman carrying old China in her bones while raising a child in America. This story shows how quiet courage can be, and how a ‘bad girl’ is often just a woman who refuses to vanish. Many will find comfort and recognition in these pages.” —Xinran Xue, author of The Good Women of China

“A tender, poignant family history, laced with sharp insight and quiet humour. Bad Bad Girl is not just the story of women who journeyed from the old world to the new, but also of the luminous, deeply personal world they carried within.” —Yan Ge, author of Strange Beasts of China

“An unsentimental, insightful, and brutally honest account of Chinese family relationships, in China and the West.” —Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans
© Basso Cannarsa

GISH JEN’s most recent novel is THE RESISTERS; she also has a new book coming out in January 2022 entitled THANK YOU, MR. NIXON. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute and the Guggenheim Foundation as well as of a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and of a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short work has appeared in the New Yorker and other magazines, and have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She delivered the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University, where she is currently a visiting professor.

gishjen.com

View titles by Gish Jen

About

The award-winning author of The Resisters returns with an engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.

My mother had died, but still I heard her voice. . .

Gish’s mother, Loo Shu-hsin, is born in 1924 to a wealthy Shanghai family whose girls are expected to restrain themselves. Her beloved nursemaid—far more loving to than her real mother—is torn from her even as she is constantly reprimanded: “Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!” Sent to a modern Catholic school by her progressive father, she receives not only an English name—Agnes—but a first-rate education. To his delight, she excels. But even then he can only sigh, “Too bad. If you were a boy, you could accomplish a lot.” Agnes finds solace in books and, in 1947, announces her intention to pursue a PhD in America. As the Communist revolution looms, she sets sail—never to return.

Lonely and adrift in New York, she begins dating Jen Chao-Pe, an engineering student. They do their best to block out the increasingly dire plight of their families back home and successfully establish a new American life: Marriage! A house in the suburbs! A number one son! By the time Gish is born, though, the news from China is proving inescapable; their marriage is foundering; and Agnes, confronted with a strong-willed, outspoken daughter distinctly reminiscent of herself, is repeating the refrain—“Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!”—as she recapitulates the harshness of her own childhood.

Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written: genre-bending, courageous, wise, and as immensely incisive as it is compassionate.

Praise

“Moving and healing.” —Marion Winik, Boston Globe

“Sharp and compassionate. . . . Some relationships are so complex that truth can’t do them justice.” —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

“What an amazing f***ing novel, wild like love and twice as revealing. Gish Jen has written the multigenerational mother-daughter epic of our new century. Bad Bad Girl spans decades, oceans, continents, generations, languages, showing us we can escape almost anything—except the voices of our parents. Intergenerational mother-daughter mayhem of the absolute best smartest vexing most moving kind.” —Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

★ “Astute and revelatory. . . . Throughout, the author blends sharp-witted autofiction with powerful images. . . . This is striking.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ "A great novelist distills the truth of her mother’s life, and her own. . . . Lively. . . . Fully three-dimensional. . . . As portraits of tough mother-daughter relationships go, it’s as moving as they come.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

★ “Heartbreaking and stunning.” —Library Journal (starred)

★ “A uniquely faceted, cross-cultural mother-daughter drama of anguish, fracture, determination, humor, loyalty, and love. . . . Ravishingly vivid.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)

★ “Singular. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Strikingly authentic. . . . Both deeply personal and universally resonant. . . . Jen’s prose is precise, elegant, and often witty in a way that acts as a balm. . . . Bad Bad Girl is a powerful reminder that while death may silence voices, it cannot extinguish the conversations that continue in our hearts and minds. This book is imperative for anyone interested in immigrant experiences, the complexities of family, and the art of writing personal history.” —Elizabeth DeNoma, Shelf Awareness (starred)

“Gish Jen is the absolute master of extremely funny devastation.” —Jessie Gaynor, LitHub

“Reading Bad Bad Girl, I felt a deep ache for mothers and daughters divided by culture and silence. Gish Jen writes tenderly about a woman carrying old China in her bones while raising a child in America. This story shows how quiet courage can be, and how a ‘bad girl’ is often just a woman who refuses to vanish. Many will find comfort and recognition in these pages.” —Xinran Xue, author of The Good Women of China

“A tender, poignant family history, laced with sharp insight and quiet humour. Bad Bad Girl is not just the story of women who journeyed from the old world to the new, but also of the luminous, deeply personal world they carried within.” —Yan Ge, author of Strange Beasts of China

“An unsentimental, insightful, and brutally honest account of Chinese family relationships, in China and the West.” —Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans

Author

© Basso Cannarsa

GISH JEN’s most recent novel is THE RESISTERS; she also has a new book coming out in January 2022 entitled THANK YOU, MR. NIXON. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute and the Guggenheim Foundation as well as of a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and of a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short work has appeared in the New Yorker and other magazines, and have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She delivered the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University, where she is currently a visiting professor.

gishjen.com

View titles by Gish Jen

Additional formats

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