A Good Fall, is a collection of short stories written by a Chinese author, Ha Jin. Jin left China in 1985 to attend Brandeis Universsity. He is now a professor of English at Boston University. He is a recipient of many awards including the National Book Award.

In this book, Jin writes about the large immigrant community of Flushing, NY: a waitress who has to send her hard earned money back home to her spoiled little sister so she can buy an import car, a lonely composer who grew dependent on his girlfriend’s parakeet; young children decide to change their names so that they might sound more “American,” unaware of how deeply this will hurt their grandparents.

Vick Boughton from People Magazine sums it well. . .” (Jin) writes with warmth and humor about what it means to be a bewidered stranger in a strange land, no matter where one was born.”