Summary Of High School Reunion By Mona Fertig

Coming of Age as an “Outsider”

The power of storytelling can be a strong positive force in helping us shape our self-identity. In both Mona Fertig’s, “Birth of an Art Sleuth”, and Maxine Hong Kingston’s, “High School Reunion”, we see a high level of self-identity develop. These stories both hold significant value in the theme of discovering who we are. Mona Fertig tells the story of growing up in a rather unconventional lifestyle. Contrary to most families at this time, Fertig’s mother worked full time at The Vancouver Sun and her father, an artist, stayed home and painted (134). Throughout the story we see that Fertig looked up to her father and spoke about him in admiration. Fertig illustrates what her life was like growing up

Her father had died a few months after she had gotten married, and she came home to spend time with her mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Following her fathers death, Fertig writes that “with my dad’s death my mother’s life emptied out, almost disappeared” (136). Her mother passed soon after. Mona Fertig returned to Kitsilano after her parents death. She explains that the grief followed by the death of her parents look years to overcome, that “it was easier to forget than remember”

Throughout both stories, the authors are trying to answer one main question—what defines success? Mona Fertig is determined to find out why her father didn’t make it in the art world, and what success means in that area, whereas Maxine Hong Kingston is showing that success does not always come to the people that you expect it to. In addition to this the writers are questioning who they are and why things happened the way that they did. Both pieces show the development and discovery of a changing identity. Mona Fertig and Maxine Hong Kingston show the development of their character and identity, growing into strong-willed, confident women who are happy with themselves and their accomplishments. Both authors use storytelling to show that the experiences you have in life shape who you are. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s preface to “High School Reunion”, she writes “it is possible to heal history” (xiv). From reading both pieces, this theme of healing is shown and we see that it is possible to reconcile our emotions from past events. We develop our stories by testing them on ourselves—and with this, we find out who we really