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A review by tenderbench
Activities of Daily Living by Lisa Hsiao Chen
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
Activities of Daily Living portrays a slice of Alice’s life–the years her father’s health rapidly deteriorates from severe dementia, moving from his house into several nursing homes based on his care needs. Simultaneously, she is fixated on both the Taiwanese performance artist Tehching Hsieh for what she calls The Project, and the concept of projects as a coping mechanism against the durational performance that is life. The book flips between the history of Hsieh’s practice and Alice’s visits to California to see her dad, with clear parallels made between their experiences with isolation and battles with time.
This story hit home for me in so many ways. My grandma was recently admitted into a care home after many unmanageable instances over the years. I worked in art for a decade, focussing on contemporary Asian art, in which Tehching Hsieh is a legend. And I know how Alice feels as she busies herself with projects that either don’t manifest or don’t pay, and how she tries to understand life through art, theory, and literature, holding onto these coping mechanisms that are ultimately ineffective. I loved the heart of this novel and the writing style–how it connected plot to Sontag, Levé, etc. in meandering ways, yet was approachable to read. Still, something needed to be tweaked. Perhaps it needed to be in first-person POV vs. third, as the narration was very “stream of consciousness” but was hindered by its detached feeling. I was also jarred when reality mixed with fiction–Alice attended real-life exhibitions, but then the story at times shifted into a bit of a Tehching Hsieh fan fiction; the mix left me not knowing how to position my headspace.
Overall, this was tender and introspective, and gave me a lot to think about. Fans of art history and critical theory would especially enjoy it.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company. Activities of Daily Living comes out on April 12.
This story hit home for me in so many ways. My grandma was recently admitted into a care home after many unmanageable instances over the years. I worked in art for a decade, focussing on contemporary Asian art, in which Tehching Hsieh is a legend. And I know how Alice feels as she busies herself with projects that either don’t manifest or don’t pay, and how she tries to understand life through art, theory, and literature, holding onto these coping mechanisms that are ultimately ineffective. I loved the heart of this novel and the writing style–how it connected plot to Sontag, Levé, etc. in meandering ways, yet was approachable to read. Still, something needed to be tweaked. Perhaps it needed to be in first-person POV vs. third, as the narration was very “stream of consciousness” but was hindered by its detached feeling. I was also jarred when reality mixed with fiction–Alice attended real-life exhibitions, but then the story at times shifted into a bit of a Tehching Hsieh fan fiction; the mix left me not knowing how to position my headspace.
Overall, this was tender and introspective, and gave me a lot to think about. Fans of art history and critical theory would especially enjoy it.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company. Activities of Daily Living comes out on April 12.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, and Death of parent