Amy Chua recently caused waves in the entertainment world when excerpts of her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, were published in The Wall Street Journal early in January. Among other indignities, Chua claimed that she called her two daughters "garbage," threatened to burn their teddy bears if they didn't practice piano and refused to allow them social lives. Most threateningly, her memoir plugged into fears that the "demanding Eastern model" of parenting is chugging out children more geared toward success in comparison to the "permissive Western model," to use the words of the Journal. Chua has countered her critics - who accuse her of everything from child abuse to a Chinese superiority complex - by claiming that the book is a memoir, not a how-to guide. Indeed, in the very lengthy subtitle, Chua describes the book as "a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old."
It's a conciliatory subtitle for a woman who is formidable in her own accomplishments, even outside her child-rearing techniques. Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, has already written two other books on globalism and ethnic conflict after graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School. Indeed, if we take Chua at face value, Battle Hymn should be read as the personal journey of one woman growing as a parent. But the more cynical side of us is inclined to take the publicity surrounding Chua's memoir with a grain of salt. As the saying goes, all press is good press, and the reaction to Battle Hymn has landed it right where Chua wanted it to be: as a New York Times bestseller list debut. In the distance, we think we hear a roar of success from the Tiger Mother.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
