Repeat After Me by Rachel DeWoskin

Repeat After Me by Rachel DeWoskin is a bittersweet cross-cultural tragic love story between two persons whose lives briefly intertwine but are changed forever. The story follows the relationship between Aysha Silvermintz, a young neurotic ESL teacher in Manhattan, and Da Ge, her student who is a Chinese dissident who comes to the U.S. just after the Tiananmen Square uprisings.

Both Asyha and Da Ge come from fragmented families, carrying a lot of personal baggage. Asyha has long carried a burden of guilt for the failure of her parents’ marriage and has suffered from a nervous breakdown. Da Ge also has a troubled past, which includes a mother who committed suicide, as well as a complicated attitude toward his country and his father.

After  Da Ge joins Aysha’s class, Aysha begins to fall in love with him. Not too long after that, Da Ge abruptly asks Aysha to marry him so he can obtain his U.S. citizenship. Ashya agrees . The marriage arrangement creates tension as they need to prove to the authorities that their marriage is not a sham.

When Aysha discovers that she is pregnant, she procrastinates in telling Da Ge because she is not sure of his reaction. Da Ge  is distant from her at times  and is rather unpredictable and often disappears for days without telling her where he has been and she does not question him.

One day Da Ge disappears again and after a few days of not hearing from him, Aysha finally goes looking for him in his apartment in Chinatown. She discovers that he has committed suicide by hanging himself. He dies without knowing that he is going to be a father.

To make sense of his life and death, she moves to China to deliver and raise her daughter whom she names Julia Too. She and her daughter become close to Da Ge’s estranged father who loves his granddaughter dearly.