The Natural Laws of Good Luck : A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage

ellen Is Forty-six, Divorced, And Having No Luck With Personal Ads When Her Chinese Girlfriend Comes Up With A Plan: She Has A Brother In China, Zhong-hua, Who’s Lonely Too. Maybe They’d Like Each Other? Taking A Leap Of Faith That Most Of Us Wouldn’t Dare, Ellen Travels To China To Meet Him. Though They Speak Only A Few Words Of Each Other’s Language, There’s An Unspoken Connection Between Them And They Decide To Marry. what Follows Is A Remarkably Touching And Humorous Story Of Two People From Completely Different Worlds Trying To Make A Marriage Work. Settling In At Ellen’s Ramshackle Farmhouse In Upstate New York, They Quickly Discover The Cultural Chasm That Lies Between Them. Ellen And Her Teenage Daughter Decide To Adopt A Policy Of Nonjudgment As Zhong-hua Lobbies To Sell Their Refrigerator (“just Three People, No Need”), Serves Them Giant Sea Slugs For Dinner, And Brusquely Nudges Ellen Aside Without An “excuse Me” (“family No Need These Kind Of Words”). zhong-hua Is Not The Type To Offer His Wife Impromptu Smiles Or Hugs, But In Bed At Night He Holds Her Tightly Like She’s “something Long Lost And Precious That Might Not Live Until Morning.” the Natural Laws Of Good Luck is An Unusual And Exquisitely Written Love Story—one That Will Resonate With Anyone Who Has Ever Contemplated With Wonder The Spaces That Exist Between Us And Those We Care About. kirkus Reviews a Debut Author Examines The Unusual Union With Her Husband. After A Divorce And Little Success With Personal Ads, 46-year-old Graf Began To Feel An Overwhelming Loneliness. When Her Chinese Neighbor Suggested That She Meet Her Similarly Lonely Brother, Graf Set Off To China. Though She Describes Herself As An Anxious Person And Not Eager To Trust, The Author Married Zhong-hua A Few Weeks After Meeting Him. We Shared The Implicit Trust Of Mountain Climbers, She Writes, Based Solely On The Certainty That The Other Will Not Purposely Let You Fall. This Stoic Pragmatism Helped Graf Endure An 18-month Waiting Period Before Her Husband Could Move To America, Another 18 Months Before His Adolescent Daughter Could Join Them, And, Finally, Zhong-hua's Bout With Cancer. The Culture Shock Each Has Endured-expressed In Graf's Vivid Though Gnarled Prose-is Mind-boggling. When Her Husband Bumped Into Her One Day, The Author Was Surprised That He Didn't Offer An Apology Or Even An Excuse Me. She Soon Learned, However, That Apologies Of Any Kind Would Not Be Forthcoming Because In China There Is No Distinction Between Oneself And One's Mate. As For Zhong-hua, The Surgery He Underwent For His Cancer Was Not Only Strange And Foreign But Antithetical To The Teachings Of His Beloved Tai Chi And Qigong. The Lengthy Transcriptions Of The Couple's Dialogue Often Slows The Narrative Pace, And Though Graf Offers Occasionally Insightful Commentary On The Danger Of Cultural Assumptions, The Many Unanswered Questions Make For A Frustrating Read. A Middling Memoir Of Romantic And Spiritual Exploration. "The quirky and funny story of a woman in upstate New York who marries a man from China whom she barely knows. They don't share a language or a culture, but together they discover what matters most--a story of taking risks, culture clash, and the journey to real love.\Ellen was lonely and having no luck with personal ads when her Chinese girlfriend suggested that she meet Zhong-Hua, her brother in northern China. Ellen soon finds herself going to Beijing to meet him, and although they speak only a few words of each other's language, they decide to get married.\Ellen and Zhong-Hua settle at Ellen's farmhouse in upstate New York where they face a host of challenges, including the language barrier, financial problems, and profound cultural differences"--Booksamillion.com In a story of acceptance and love beyond words, an upstate New Yorker meets and marries a man from China who she barely knows and with whom she doesn't share a language or culture, but she learns that his eternal optimism manages to get them through financial problems, cultural differences, and other challenges