American Knees

Shawn Wong is the author of the award-winning novel Homebase and an editor of several anthologies of Asian American literature, including Aiiieeeee! and The Big Aiiieeeee! He is the director of the University Honors Program at the University of Washington.Read about the movie, Americanese, based on Shawn Wong's book, at: http://www.americanesethemovie.com

"American Knees (a takeoff on the old schoolyard song, 'Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees. . .') is the story of how Raymond Ding, a politically correct man with a politically incorrect sense of humor, falls into, and out of, love with newspaper photographer Aurora Crane. As Raymond and Aurora's story unfolds, Wong crafts some wonderfully telling and funny scenes of social relations in multicultural America."(Seattle Weekly) "Wong overturns the racial stereotypes perpetrated against Asians in this country, and he does so with humor to spare. . . . No one has more eloquently or joyfully asserted our belonging."- David Wong Louie (Los Angeles Times Book Review) "Shawn Wong adds a funny, sexy chapter to Asian American literature. . . . A multi-cultural comedy that relentlessly lampoons the incidents and incidentals of modern Asian American life."- Julie Shiroishi (San Francisco Bay Guardian) "With American Knees, Wong constructs a fast-paced world of botched romances, sexual and racial stereotypes, and unfulfilled longing."(A. Magazine)

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Jeffrey F. L. Partridge1. Loyalty, Betrayal, & Revenge2. Gold Spike3. Eye Contact4. Open Curtains5. Sleepwalking6. Fear of Flying7. Moment Resistance8. Chinese Girls9. Pathology10. Betty Loves Raymond11. Medical History12. Extravagance and Equilibrium