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Shirley Geok-lin Lim. Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands. New York. Feminist Press. 1996. viii + 232 pages + 4 plates. $22.95. ISBN 155861-144-4.
Shirley Lim's literary preoccupations are defined-if not consumed-by her Asian-American female identity, as her poetry, criticism, and now her memoir bear witness. Among the White Moon Faces is her self-confessed attempt to define her "place" in the world, so as to be able to relate to, and feel comfortable in, a "home": it is a necessary journey of discovery, as Lim's geographic angst leaps out of every printed page. Though it is "identity" that is identified as the root of the search, there is no doubt that identity, in Lim's perception, is related almost wholly to the idea of belonging to a smudge on a map. It is, if unkindly, the kind of dilemma that the American melting-pot...