Book Review: Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

‘Cinema Love’ by Jiaming Tang explores love, identity, and the weight of unspoken desires. 

Book Review: Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang is a beautiful debut that spans decades and continents. At its heart are Old Second and Bao Mei, a couple whose lives intertwine in New York City’s Chinatown, yet carry the weight of their shared, complex past in rural Fuzhou, China. 

Tang skillfully navigates three timelines – post-socialist China, 1980s Chinatown, and contemporary New York – unpacking layers of cultural displacement, secrecy, and longing. The Workers’ Cinema – a haven for closeted gay men in Fuzhou – becomes a haunting symbol of the forbidden connections that shaped Old Second’s life. Meanwhile, Bao Mei’s time at the cinema’s box office, selling tickets to closeted men while forging her own path, resonates as an exploration of personal freedom within constraints. As their secrets unravel, Tang leads readers through moments of tenderness and heartache, culminating in an uncertain yet profoundly human future.

Tang’s prose is both tender and incisive, capturing the fragility of love amidst societal expectations and the enduring scars of repression. The novel shines as a nuanced portrayal of queer identities and immigrant experiences, portraying characters who wrestle with their past while yearning for connection in their present. It is in the quiet, everyday acts – selling movie tickets, stolen glances in the darkened cinema – that Tang finds the epic in the ordinary.

Ultimately, Cinema Love is a stunning meditation on love, secrecy, and belonging.

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