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64th out of 75 books
—
92 voters
The Foreigner: A Novel
by
Francie Lin
Winner of the Edgar® Award for Best First Novel by an American Author
Set against the Taiwanese criminal underworld, The Foreigner is Francie Lin's audacious debut novel. A noirish tale about family, fraternity, conscience, and the curious gulf between a man's culture and his deepest self
Emerson Chang is a mild mannered bachelor on the cusp of forty, a financial analyst in...more
Set against the Taiwanese criminal underworld, The Foreigner is Francie Lin's audacious debut novel. A noirish tale about family, fraternity, conscience, and the curious gulf between a man's culture and his deepest self
Emerson Chang is a mild mannered bachelor on the cusp of forty, a financial analyst in...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
May 27th 2008
by Picador
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It has been some time since I read a book and cared less about the main character. I finished reading this because I kept waiting for the story to surprise me, or for the main character to get a clue.
Unfortunately, Emerson was one dimensional throughout the entire story. Most main characters are torn, or conflicted about their past. Not this guy, he's a self deluding "paragon of virtue" sitting on his high horse passively judging the rest of the world. Basically, he bored me. Francie Lin couldn...more
Unfortunately, Emerson was one dimensional throughout the entire story. Most main characters are torn, or conflicted about their past. Not this guy, he's a self deluding "paragon of virtue" sitting on his high horse passively judging the rest of the world. Basically, he bored me. Francie Lin couldn...more
This is a story of a 40-year old virgin who lives in San Francisco and crosses the Bay Bridge and down I-880 every Friday night to have dinner with his mother. I was thinking, damn this coulda been me. Mother dies, son goes to Taiwan with will in hand searching for his missing younger brother. Turns out bro is a gangster. Some pretty bad writing ensues. I had to give it the biased three stars for the following reason -- there aren't that many people writing about male Taiwanese Americans who spe...more
Although the author writes excellent, evocative descriptions of scenes, her characters made no sense to me, the plot was a series of dangling teasers, and there were weird failures to pay attention to detail. (With regard to the latter, after a character has made a big point of bolting the door, several people sashay through it a few minutes later.) The hero is a cypher, a middle-aged Chinese American so devoted to his mother that he carries her ashes in a shoulder bag wherever he goes and finds...more
This is not your usual sentimental story about an American-born Chinese finding his roots. Instead, this page-turning debut novel by American writer Francie Lin reads more like a Hong Kong gangster flick, right down to the estranged brothers who find themselves on different sides.
Emerson, 40, lives an uneventful life as an unambitious financial analyst in San Francisco. The extent of his social life is meeting his Taiwanese immigrant mother for dinner every Friday.
Though it starts like a domesti...more
Emerson, 40, lives an uneventful life as an unambitious financial analyst in San Francisco. The extent of his social life is meeting his Taiwanese immigrant mother for dinner every Friday.
Though it starts like a domesti...more
This is the story about 40-year old Emerson, still a virgin and having weekly Friday night dinners with his overbearing mother. As he fulfills his familial obligations, Emerson recounts his childhood, including losing his father at age 11, and his relationship with his mother laden with awkward sexual undertones. Emerson's younger brother, Little P, fled back to Taipain 10 years earlier with little to no contact since. Emerson decides to return to his homeland to find his brother and potentially...more
What to say? For a first novel, this is fairly accomplished, a complete story without any gaping holes, a certain mastery of language. Am I damning this book with faint praise? I suppose so. In the first 20 pages or so, I really didn't think I would want to continue reading. There were so many cliches and obvious hooks, so many pat plot devices (the loyal son versus the missing son, the overweening mother, the diffidence of the immigrant, the return to the homeland) that my eyes rolled rather fr...more
This was a very frustrating book. The intercultural premise intrigued me—and the fact that it had won the Edgar Award—so I picked it up at the airport for a coast-to-coast flight. The book begins interestingly enough—and Francie Lin does write well—so it was not difficult to get started with it. But the further I read, the less I liked it. There are just too many annoying factors. First, there are so many inconsistencies and the entire story is less than credible that the praise it has received...more
The Foreigner won a well-deserved Edgar for the Best First Novel in 2008. It's the story of Emerson Chang, a mild-mannered, passive, dutiful son of his stick figure mother. The mother dies, and as executor, Emerson seeks out his black sheep brother in Taiwan to put her ashes to rest and turn over an inheritance.
There's an ugly stench of decay and deceit in every place and every exchange that Emerson has in Taiwan. It's only the unrequited love of an American Chinese woman who saves his life, tim...more
There's an ugly stench of decay and deceit in every place and every exchange that Emerson has in Taiwan. It's only the unrequited love of an American Chinese woman who saves his life, tim...more
Not sure why this book was chosen as Edgar Best First Novel. The mystery part was nearly non-existent. Emerson was bland and flat, a disappointment as a main character for the most part, although there were a couple of scenes in which I thought he might develop.
Lin's descriptions of Taipei were very dark and gave me the creeps, so must have been well done if they could evoke such a reaction. The same could be said for the manipulative actions of the mother and the interactions between Mother &
...more
In The Foreigner, by Francie Lin, we meet Emerson Chang. A forty year old bachelor who leads a less than exciting life in his stuffy pressed suits as a financial analyst. His world is flipped upside down by the death of his mother, which leads him to a completely life changing adventure of sorts to Taipei to settle the inheritance of his mysteriously crooked younger brother; Little P.
The way this story is written alone is well worth the read. Filled with characters you may never want to come ac...more
The way this story is written alone is well worth the read. Filled with characters you may never want to come ac...more
Mar 15, 2009
Michael
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
no one
Recommended to Michael by:
saw on the Edgar nominees
I did not like this book and fail to see how it was nominated for an Edgar Award for the best first mystery novel.
The hero is manipulated by his mother for years. She arranges dates and discourages his dating non-Chinese women.
He seems to have no backbone and in not an interesting character.
When his mother dies, he goes overseas to find his brother, tell him the bad news about his mother and inform him that his mother left the family motel to the brother.
The brother is a non caring character...more
The hero is manipulated by his mother for years. She arranges dates and discourages his dating non-Chinese women.
He seems to have no backbone and in not an interesting character.
When his mother dies, he goes overseas to find his brother, tell him the bad news about his mother and inform him that his mother left the family motel to the brother.
The brother is a non caring character...more
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I spent over eighteen years living in Taiwan, but looks like there's a whole other side to the place I never got to see before. While I'd heard about the drugs gangs and criminal underworld, this book gave me my first real look at Taipei's dirty underbelly. This book is definitely not for everyone, but if you like China-based fiction (or at least Republic of China-based), this was a fascinating and fairly non-traditional read. Not a perfect book by any means -- I found the ending in particular k...more
Jan 01, 2011
Seth
added it
This started out well but didn't seem to live up. Towards the middle, I was wondering when things were going to start happening, and about 3/4 of the way through, I realized they never were. The writing was good, but I'm not sure she knew where she wanted to go with things. The end especially felt like a mess. All of a sudden it seemed like things were symbolic instead of actually happening, and it made me wonder if the whole book was supposed to be read that way. Opinions seem divided on this o...more
This is a novel about a Chinese American family. The mother asks that her 40 year old son, Emerson, return her ashes to Taiwan to be placed in a temple there. And, while there - would he find her other son, "Little P" (Xiao P), who has abandoned them 10 years earlier. The culture clash is unexpected given Emerson is Chinese. Emerson finds it difficult to understand his brother and what he is involved in and why he can't help remove him from harm's way. I enjoyed the descriptive writing by the au...more
The story seemed interesting at first but became less and less so towards the end. I didn't really like the main character, he wasn't particularly interesting or engaging. I suppose one of the main reasons this book won a prize is because it is about China, about Taiwan - probably one of the "hottest" subjects now. But for someone who lived in China for the past 10 years it doesn't offer any surprises. I believe the author could have taken a more interesting angle on the same story.
Guess my Chinese genre books have been jaded by Any Tan or Pearl Buck. This book was not good. It failed on about every level from one dimensional characters to a bogus plot. Why take almost all the book to tell us they are dealing in human trafficing but pretty much spell it out in the first chapter. Oh brother. The one thing I did like was the descriptions of Taiwain and the relationship to mainland China. The plot, the characters left a lot to be deisred
Imagine the most incredibly depressing book ever. This would be it.
It's a story of a man whose mother died and he travels back to his homeland of Taiwan to meet up with his brother to settle the will of his mother.
He arrives and find out what his brother has been doing with his life. As the plot continues the story just keeps getting more and more depressing until a final "boom" at the end makes it slightly less depressing.
I wouldn't recommend it or read it again.
It's a story of a man whose mother died and he travels back to his homeland of Taiwan to meet up with his brother to settle the will of his mother.
He arrives and find out what his brother has been doing with his life. As the plot continues the story just keeps getting more and more depressing until a final "boom" at the end makes it slightly less depressing.
I wouldn't recommend it or read it again.
The writing was very beautiful, but the story seemed to be lacking... the surroundings, other characters, and objects were lovingly described, but the main character seemed very distant from everything, or distant from the reader. He seemed to float through it all like a dream, making it a bit confusing to discern between past and present, and actual dreams. The story was very interesting, but the end was a bit more whimper than bang. eh.
It was hard for me to like this book because I found the lead character difficult to respect. I had to keep reminding myself that this is probably not an unrealistic portrait of someone who grew up they way he did. Like others have said i don't understanding it being a candidate for an Edgar award; must have been an off year. I gave it 3 because it is well written.
The premise of this novel was interesting, and I wanted very much to like it, but it never really pulled me in. I tried to understand the motivations of the protagonist, an American-born Chinese, as he seeks to reclaim his connection to his roots and his wayward brother, but the underworld gangster plotline seemed too cliche.
This book received the 2009 Edgar Award for best first mystery. The other contenders must have been totally without merit because there was nothing terribly mysterious about Francie Lin's plot or characters. I did appreciate glimpsing Taipei but probably only because I have a couple of Taiwanese friends.
This book does a wonderful job of allowing you to really become sucked into the drama of the story, and never once did it feel kitschy or overdone. Francie Lin is a great writer, creating moments of extreme duress and chaos thrown right in with moments of tenderness without making the book feel fractured. When it ended I found myself wanting to know what happens next. Great read.
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Very clearly a first novel, The Foreigner showed lots of promise but was ultimately hindered by flat characters and a plot that jumped through events without any logical connection from point a to point b. There are some beautiful uses of language, but that isn't enough to keep the novel afloat.
A lyrical, beautifully written thriller that rethinks the "ABC assimilation return to homeland" story. Some women show up in Taiwan that are a bit too much of deux ex machina, but then again, there's that Chinese saying "If there were no coincidences, there'd be no stories."
I see what the author was going for, that general feeling of disembodiment and mysterious confusion in a place new but part of your past. But, it was mostly a let-down, and I found myself more and more annoyed by the naive fumblings of the narrator.
If you have a brother, and you feel ambivalently about that brother because perhaps that brother has committed an unspeakable crime, but then your mother for some reason has willed the family business to him anyway, and that act of maternal betrayal has left you feeling just a little bit bitter, but you still feel like you should try to find your brother and do whatever it takes to hold the family together, then this book is for you. If you don't have a brother, or seem to find yourself in this...more
Suspenseful, with good pacing. However, when Emerson confronts his midlife issues, he surrenders to hoplessness and mediocrity. The mood is dreary and the theme is so nihilistic that it drags the story down, with the reader in tow.
Francie is one of my oldest friends whom I knew would turn into an author. This is her debut novel. I didn't expect her to write a thriller/mystery, to which she replied, "It didn't start out that way, but its how it turned out." Francie is able to transport you to the gritty streets of Taiwan, illuminate the politics of independence, and have your heartstrings pulled by the interplay of family loyalty and self-preservation. It was a compelling read.
Apr 08, 2010
Catherine Mustread
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Catherine by:
Edgar Award Best First Novel By An American Author winner
Forty-year-old Emerson, devastated after the death of his Mother, leaves San Francisco for a crime-filled part of Taiwan in search of his younger brother, Little P, who disappeared 10 years previously. Although I'm not a fan of novels with a sense of forthcoming doom, the suspense, setting and the family relationships kept me turning the pages and I was surprised by the plot twists and final outcome. Reminded me of Flower Net by Lisa See.
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