BILL MOYERS: What did they think when TYPICAL AMERICAN, your first book, was such a success? GISH JEN: Well, they were happy enough. It was fine. But there was a moment where suddenly it became ...

Gish Jen is the author of the novels *Typical American*, *Mona in the Promised Land*, *The Love Wife*, and *Who's Irish*, a book of stories. Her honors include the Lannan Award for Fiction and the ...

GISH JEN: A working class neighborhood ... Now, everybody knows that I wrote the book after turning Jewish and staying Jewish. (LAUGHTER) No one would dare ask me whether I spoke Chinese.

And they would give him a trigonometry book and he would hand it back and say, "I can do that too." They really didn't quite believe it. BILL MOYERS: What was the story of the bridge? GISH JEN ...