Vintage was not paying attention when they produced this book.  On the front, it reads “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.”  Beneath the title it says, “Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.”

But guess what the back says?  “Fiction/Literature.”

Yes, a book that, on the front, is called “nonfiction” and “memoir” is meant to be shelved in the “fiction” section.  I found it in the biography section of Borders, where, in my opinion, it belongs (of course I love the memoir/fiction dichotomy here).

Maxine Hong Kingston’s beautiful and wonderful account of her childhood in California and her family’s dry cleaning place is not a traditional memoir, though it does contain the confessional quality of many.

Although there are parts that are clearly not “real” or never happened, the important part is that they are clearly fictional.  The “real life” parts of the book are no fuzzier than memory, and because of that, I think the book deserves to sit with other memoirs.

My favorite section, “White Tigers,” does not deal with Kingston’s life, but rather her childhood fantasy of becoming, quite literally, a woman warrior in ancient China and defending her village and family against invaders.  The language stuns and amazes, and at the end of the “chapter” I felt a profound sense of having lost something for it being over.

Other parts of the memoir deal with Kingston’s mother being a doctor in China and how she dealt with many evil ghosts, as well as an imagined situation in which her aunt arrives from China and has to face her husband, who has re-married in California and become a rich doctor.

While it is these “fantasies” that get The Woman Warrior pegged as “fiction,” it is these fantasies that make the story real for the reader.  Kingston shows the reader the reality of her family, but what child never indulges in fantasy?  What child has a realistic view of her family?

The ghost stories and half-remembered family memories convey the feeling and emotion of this family—something that tells the reader far more about their lives than mere facts ever could.  This is without a doubt a case of fiction being truer than truth.

Plus, in the sections that deal with ghosts and ghost stories, Kingston is primarily relaying stories that her mother told her, and she points that out.  In relaying these stories, Kingston is showing the reader what is important about storytelling—that it be a story worth telling, and a story with meaning.

Kingston doesn’t relate these ghost stories because they are “fun.”  She relates them because they show the reader the incredible difference between her mother’s life in China and her life in the United States.  They highlight cultural differences, and they show us what her mother lost in coming to this new country—magic.

The books’ nontraditional structure also fascinates me.  Kingston did not write traditional “chapters,” but rather five sections that could easily stand alone, but that accomplish much more together.

You could argue that the book is a collection of short stories, or you could argue it’s a complete book.  I think both are correct, and the first section, “No Name Woman,” was published elsewhere first.

The disjointed sections don’t really come together to tell one singular story.  Kingston peppers each section with family anecdotes among the ghost stories, and leaves it up to the reader to search out all the mundane details of her childhood and put them together, which makes the reading experience rewarding.

On a more personal note, although Woman Warrior doesn’t deal specifically with gender roles, Kingston elevates Woman in a beautiful, poignant way, and shows the reader Woman’s inner strengths and weaknesses.  I think every woman, especially women who love good stories, should read this book.

This is a text, that as I write my own ghost stories and memoir, I will return to again and again for inspiration.

Also, if you’re publishing a book, make sure your genres match on both covers!

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