Anyone who has undergone the life-changing experience of migrating to a new country can testify to the contradictory feelings that accompany the transition, of being invigorated by novelty and yet yearning for familiarity.

In his new novel, “A Free Life” (Pantheon Books, $26), Ha Jin artfully captures this nuanced picture in telling the story of Nan Wu, a Chinese immigrant, and his wife Pingping and son Taotao.

Nan’s character borrows some details from Jin’s own life. They both came to the United States to pursue graduate studies at Brandeis University and realized after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that they wouldn’t return to China.

Jin traces the Wus’ struggle to gain financial stability in their new country. It’s a responsibility that weighs heavily on them and for which they have no guide, having come from a country that dictated their professions and provided them with housing and food.

In one part of the book, Nan points out that the promise of a better life in America isn’t that simple: “Freedom is meaningless if you don’t know how to use it. We’ve been oppressed and confined so long that it’s hard for us to change our mind-set and achieve real freedom. We’re used to the existence defined by evasions and negations,” he says. “Most of our individual tastes and natural appetites have been bridled by caution and fear. It’s more difficult to break the self-imposed tyranny than the external constraints.”

Nan and Pingping also grapple with how to survive in a new setting without a network of family and friends on which to rely, as well as how to interact with fellow Chinese immigrants, some of whom – to the couple’s disgust – blindly defend their homeland.

Nan’s unfulfilled dream of writing poetry is a thread throughout the novel. He wonders how he can be creative when all his energy is focused on staying afloat. Yet he argues with a naysayer who reasons that “it takes generations for the immigrants to outgrow the material stage” and pursue the arts. Nan responds: “That’s a philistine mentality,” and vows to chart his own course.

The epilogue contains extracts from the poetry journal Nan eventually pens, a nice bonus for poetry fans.

Jin’s prose is descriptive and detailed, if unconventional at times.

The book’s premise is ripe with opportunity, yet the tome runs 660 pages and feels that long. Several chapters conclude while leaving the reader wondering what their point was, absent any plot advancement or character development. The novel misses a strong central story and sometimes feels like a disconnected chronicling of someone’s everyday life, in all its blandness and occasional moments of drama.

While parts of the novel are intriguing and thought-provoking, overall it falls short of what one would expect from Jin, a past winner of the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award.