So one of the nicest things about going to Nebulas in person was to meet and hangout with so many online friends. Ai Jiang was a Nebulas finalist for her amazing piece in F&SF, Give Me English. (I loved this piece so much and was glad I had a subscription for F&SF so that I could read it!) So she flew out from Ontario to Anaheim and it was awesome.
Look at these goodies! She signed my copy of Linghun and she brought me an ARC of I AM AI. We had many great discussions and one of the topics that came up over and over again at the Nebulas (aside from the magic of Bigolas Dickolas) was the recent popularity of the novella and novelette length work. Ai and I loved the look and feel of the smaller paperback and I talked about how much I loved my hardcover copy of Untethered Sky. Such things are costlier but do have that premium feel which enhances the reading experience.
I AM AI was very thought-provoking. I started it at the airport and finished it over coffee this morning. Ai said she wanted to explore toxic productivity. It hit hard for me because I am absolutely a workaholic and it shows up over and over again for me. Lockdown was when I discovered how much I loved handwatering my garden because it was something that was not exactly work, and let me feel more present instead on a neverending wheel of dayjobbing, homeschooling, and worrying.
Linghun promises to be a very different read from I AM AI, in its exploration of grief and ghosts. Even though I am competing with R.R. Virdi for world’s worst Asian, I knew Linghun meant spirit or soul. So for me the title already tells me that this is about spirits moving on (or not).
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From acclaimed author Ai Jiang, follow Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. to the mysterious town of HOME, a place where the dead live again as spirits, conjured by the grief-sick population that refuses to let go. This edition includes a foreword by Yi Izzy Yu, Translator of The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, the essay “A Ramble on Di Fu Ling & Death” by the author, and two bonus short stories from Jiang: “Yǒngshí” and “Teeter Totter.”
Review
“Ai Jiang’s Linghun is the ache that follows after every funeral, when the mourners are gone and nothing is left but the haunting of memories. A ruthlessly precise meditation on what grief does to the heart, Linghun is a must-read if you enjoy crying your way through every chapter of a book.”
-Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth
“A devastating parable of loss, Ai Jiang’s Linghun is a meditation on grief, how it changes us, makes ghost of the living, and keeps us trapped in prisons of mourning. It’s a testament to Jiang’s ferocity as a lyricist of sorrow and heartbreak that I read this book in one sitting and expect it will haunt me for a very, very long time to come. Truly remarkable.”
-Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Kin and Sour Candy
“Ai Jiang probes the very notion of ghosts to offer us something far more haunting: it is the living who we should fear the most, where the boundless parameters of our own grief lay down the blueprint for an altogether new Hill House to inhabit.”
-Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters
“The neighborhood in Linghun is a twisted-neck demon, forever looking backward at the ghosts and ghosts-to-be. Ai Jiang builds an altar of the flawed living and the perfect dead with an unflinching eye for death-cloaked domestic tragedy. A haunting, brilliant debut.”
-Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
“A somber but beautiful story about grief and the pain of memory. The ghosts stay with us long after Ai Jiang’s Linghun is over, but they remind us of the gift we have that is to be alive.”
-Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Children of Chicago
“Mother believes the dead deserve our full attention-Linghun asks us whether that’s at the expense of the living. A dark, wise, and heartbreaking examination of grief and yearning, family and agency.”
-Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award-winning author of the Beneath the Rise trilogy
“Ai Jiang’s debut novella Linghun packs an absolute punch. A reflection on grief, the dangers of not letting go, on the terrible price of love-and why we’re so willing to pay for it. Wonderful, strange, and heartbreaking. Highly recommended.”
-Angela Slatter, award-winning author of The Path of Thorns
“Linghun will forever wander like a ghost in the halls of my reader’s heart, its message of grief and loss lingers, the beauty of Ai Jiang’s prose a treasured new voice. What a haunting debut.”
-Sadie Hartmann, Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor, and author of 101 Books to Read Before You’re Murdered
“Eerie and palpable, with unrequited longing, Linghun is a quiet tour de force, a diasporic ghost story of half-life, family, and deferred dreams. Ai Jiang’s writing is fiercely evocative and resounds with meaning and clarity. Linghun is a tale that lingers.”
-Lee Murray, four-time Bram Stoker Award-winner and author of Tortured Willows
“Ai Jiang’s Linghun is unlike any Gothic tale I have encountered before. It is an incredibly intricate and layered study of how loss permeates our lives and who we are. Brilliant and thoughtfully realized, Linghun and the people of ‘HOME’ have my heart and will haunt me for years to come.”
-Suzan Palumbo, Nebula Award finalist
–This text refers to the paperback edition.
About the Author
Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, a Nebula Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian. She is a member of HWA, SFWA, and Codex. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, Uncanny, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop’s 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. Find her on Twitter (@AiJiang_) and online (http: //aijiang.ca).
Yi Izzy Yu is the co-translator of The Shadow Book of Ji Yun: The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge and Zhiguai: Chinese True Tales of the Paranormal. Her short-form creative work has recently appeared in magazines ranging from New England Review to Samovar, and in anthologies such as Unquiet Spirits and Into the Forest. Currently, she lives in Pennsylvania, where she teaches Chinese and speculative literature and investigates shadows. –This text refers to the paperback edition.