In her novella "Ingratitude," Ying Chen wrote, "I was burning with the desire to see Mother suffer at the sight of my corpse." The protagonist of her novel, Yan-Zi, plans her death and carries out her own death sentence. I read the book in September of 1999, a time of hardship for me at the age of 42. Unlike the muddled mind of the very young Yan-Zi, I did not contemplate suicide, although I once did think about it when I was young. Former Harvard educator and psychologist William James said, "I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide." It is good that Ying Chen put it within her created character, rather than herself, or else we would lack one more good read. The author originally hails from Shanghai, China and immigrated to Montreal, Canada in 1989, after receiving a degree in French language and literature from Shanghai University. She now resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although Mandarin is her first language, she writes primarily in French and Carol Volk translated her work to English. This novella explores a toxic mother-daughter