Salon.com – February 8, 2007
“In The Eighth Promise, William Poy Lee lends his family's coming-to-America story a fresh twist... In alternating chapters, Lee lets his mother's story come through in her own voice... rendering lush and surprising what might otherwise be a somewhat predictable tale. The accounts of both worlds – especially that offered by Lee's mother, Poy Jen – are richly drawn and evocative, lending the book the dreamy wish-I-were-there appeal of a travel memoir. The Eighth Promise is a lively read and a significant contribution to the body of literature that continues to bubble up from the steaming cauldron that is the American immigrant experience.”
-- Meredith Maran

San Francisco Chronicle – February 4, 2007
“This rich, double-stranded memoir follows a familiar narrative arc... [that] nevertheless continues to exert a powerful allure. After reading William Poy Lee's "The Eighth Promise," we are reminded why. Lee's decision to alternate his sections with his mother's words was a wise one. Salty, forthright and candid, her voice allows us to know Poy Jen as a fully rounded being. In the end, a remarkable transference has taken place: Lee writes that Toisan, once only a vaguely indeterminate point of a map, has become ‘a state of being, an interior sensibility of home.’ For his mother America has become home.”
-- Marianne Villanueva

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) – November 20, 2006
“In this remarkable memoir, mother and son, in alternating chapters, tell the story of their life in San Francisco’s Chinatown from the 1950s to the present. Between American racism and power struggles in the Chinese community, it’s a tribute to Toisan endurance that Poy Jen not only held her family together but also brought her children back to China to fortify their clan connection. Fans of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston shouldn’t hesitate to embrace this formidable matriarch and the son she taught to cook her chi soups.”