Stephen Hong Sohn's Blog, page 24

A Review of Lysley Tenorio’s The Son of Good Fortune (Ecco, 2020).

Posted by: jacobballew

Well, Lysley Tenorio has fortunately graced us with his exquisite prose again, with his debut novel The Son of Good Fortune (Ecco, 2020). Let’s let the official marketing description get us situated: “Excel spends his days trying to seem like an unremarkable American teenager. When he’s not working at The Pie Who Loved Me (a spy-themed pizza shop) or passing the time with his girlfriend Sab (occasionally in one of their town’s seventeen cemeteries), he carefully avoids the spotlight. But Excel knows that his family is far from normal. His mother, Maxima, was once a Filipina B-movie action star who now makes her living scamming men online. The old man they live with is not his grandfather, but Maxima’s lifelong martial arts trainer. And years ago, on Excel’s tenth birthday, Maxima revealed a secret that he must keep forever. ‘We are ‘TNT’—tago ng tago,’ she told him, ‘hiding and hiding.’ Excel is undocumented—and one accidental slip could uproot his entire life. Casting aside the paranoia and secrecy of his childhood, Excel takes a leap, joining Sab on a journey south to a ramshackle desert town called Hello City. Populated by drifters, old hippies, and washed-up techies—and existing outside the normal constructs of American society—Hello City offers Excel a chance to forge his own path for the first time. But after so many years of trying to be invisible, who does he want to become? And is it possible to put down roots in a country that has always considered you an outsider? Thrumming with energy and at once critical and hopeful, The Son of Good Fortune is a luminous story of a mother and son testing the strength of their bond to their country—and to each other.” I adored this novel for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that Tenorio painstakingly crafts the evolution of a prickly relationship between mother and son. Excel is totally at odds with his mother’s life and tries to do whatever he can to leave that life behind. He believes he is doing so by being with Sab, but Excel and Maxima are more linked than he realizes. Indeed, Excel ultimately keeps his undocumented status a secret from Sab until the day that Sab confesses that she is pregnant. When Excel chooses to relay the news at this time, Sab realizes (as do the readers) that the person she has known all this time may be a stranger. In this sense, Excel performs a version of himself in disguise, something that his mother engages in as a matter of profession. While Excel doesn’t involve himself in anything long, he eventually realizes that, to do the things he wants, he may have to reconsider his principles. In this process, he begins to see that he should have been less judgmental about his mother and, at the same time, confront his own shortcomings. It is a novel of maturation, a kind of bildungsroman, but Excel is hardly initiated into some national narrative. Indeed, his status as an undocumented American is the shadow that continually draws over the plot. He cannot feel restful or safe anywhere or in any space, which is why his relationship with Sab seems to offer him the (momentary) salve, a refuge as it were in the arms of someone he loves. In this sense, the novel’s concluding arc is no doubt bittersweet and somewhat naturalistic in tone, but Tenorio gives us enough to understand that Excel is going to make the most of what he has, without apologizing for what he needs to do in order to survive. I’m all in for Tenorio’s next publication already!

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062059574/the-son-of-good-fortune/

 

 

 

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A Review of Tanaz Bhathena’s Hunted by the Sky (FSG for Young Readers, 2020).

Posted by: jacobballew

Tanaz Bhathena has already authored a number of young adult books, but the first we’ve been able to get to is Hunted by the Sky (FSG for Young Readers, 2020). Let’s let the official marketing blurb give us some background: “Exploring identity, class struggles, and high-stakes romance, Tanaz Bhathena's Hunted by the Sky is a gripping adventure set in a world inspired by medieval India. Gul has spent her life running. She has a star-shaped birthmark on her arm, and in the kingdom of Ambar, girls with such birthmarks have been disappearing for years. Gul’s mark is what caused her parents’ murder at the hand of King Lohar’s ruthless soldiers and forced her into hiding to protect her own life. So when a group of rebel women called the Sisters of the Golden Lotus rescue her, take her in, and train her in warrior magic, Gul wants only one thing: revenge. Cavas lives in the tenements, and he’s just about ready to sign his life over to the king’s army. His father is terminally ill, and Cavas will do anything to save him. But sparks fly when he meets a mysterious girl—Gul—in the capital’s bazaar, and as the chemistry between them undeniably grows, he becomes entangled in a mission of vengeance—and discovers a magic he never expected to find. Dangerous circumstances have brought Gul and Cavas together at the king’s domain in Ambar Fort...a world with secrets deadlier than their own.” The story is told, for the most part, in alternating first person perspectives. Gul’s perspective is certainly the most important. She might be the key to a prophecy that would overturn King Lohar’s rule. The problem is she doesn’t seem to be very powerful in the magical abilities one would expect her to be, especially if she’s supposed to be this revolutionary figure. Readers soon discover she is what is called a “whisperer,” a kind of magi that is able to speak to animals. The other perspective is given to Cavas. From a plotting level, Cavas serves two main purposes. The first is that he obviously brings in the romance plot dynamic which is requisite for such paranormal YA fictions. The second is that he has the potential access to get Gul onto the palace grounds, she can finally initiate her plan for revenge. Of the two perspectives, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I was way more invested in Gul’s storyline, as it really propelling us forward. We want to see how her powers develop, and we want to know exactly how this teen, with her limited magical abilities, could topple this evil regime. It turns out that Bhathena is already planning the series to go elsewhere, as the darkest villain ends up being someone else entirely (but I’ll leave that for our readers to be surprised). I really enjoyed this paranormal YA fiction. Some readers might find it derivative but I liked the world building aspects connected to the different classes of magical abilities: there are women who are able to figure out if you are telling the truth, there are others that are able to see the dead (these are called seers), and there are others, like Gul, who are able to speak to animals. I also appreciated the level of complexity that Bhathena weaves into the political dynamics of the fictional world. At first, it seems as though individuals with magical-wielding capabilities are being unfairly targeted. Yet later, it becomes evident that non-magical peoples have also experienced negative relationships with those who wield such awesome powers. In this sense, the line between enemy and ally become more blurred, complicating Gul’s perspective. The ending gamely sets up the next installment, and I’ll be excited to see where the adventures of Gul and Cavas end up going. I will also add that Bhathena cleverly includes a third first person perspective at the conclusion, and I’ll be interested to see if that particular character receives more first-person billing as the series moves onward.

 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

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A Review of Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland (Gr

Posted by: jacobballew

I am admittedly become a fan of creative nonfiction. I remember a time when I just immediately gravitated to fiction writing but over the last five years or so, I’ve been finding myself shifting more and more to reading creative nonfiction. I come to Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland (Graywolf, 2020), being a huge fan of Mockett’s other publications, including Picking Bones from Ash, a novel, and Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye, a memoir.  I wouldn’t call American Harvest a memoir, it seems to be something in between a historical study, a memoir, and something like an ethnography. There is a strongly academic character to this work that is partly evidenced by the extensive works cited. In podcasts and interviews, you also find out that Mockett’s original manuscript was 600 pages. We’ll hope that she saved what she cut out, so someone can work through what I’m sure is a supremely rich archive of original materials. But I belabor the general description, which is here from the official site: “For over one hundred years, the Mockett family has owned a seven-thousand-acre wheat farm in the panhandle of Nebraska, where Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s father was raised. Mockett, who grew up in bohemian Carmel, California, with her father and her Japanese mother, knew little about farming when she inherited this land. Her father had all but forsworn it. In American Harvest, Mockett accompanies a group of evangelical Christian wheat harvesters through the heartland at the invitation of Eric Wolgemuth, the conservative farmer who has cut her family’s fields for decades. As Mockett follows Wolgemuth’s crew on the trail of ripening wheat from Texas to Idaho, they contemplate what Wolgemuth refers to as ‘the divide,’ inadvertently peeling back layers of the American story to expose its contradictions and unhealed wounds. She joins the crew in the fields, attends church, and struggles to adapt to the rhythms of rural life, all the while continually reminded of her own status as a person who signals ‘not white,’ but who people she encounters can’t quite categorize. American Harvest is an extraordinary evocation of the land and a thoughtful exploration of ingrained beliefs, from evangelical skepticism of evolution to cosmopolitan assumptions about food production and farming. With exquisite lyricism and humanity, this astonishing book attempts to reconcile competing versions of our national story.” Whereas Mockett’s memoir really explored her maternal heritage, Mockett here dives deeply into the farming history of her father’s family. The book takes shape around the fact that she wants to go along with the harvesting season. As Mockett travels through the so-called heartland, she must contend with her status as an outsider, not only to harvesting culture but also to the fact that she’s not fully white. One of the most interesting aspects of the memoir is how frequently Mockett is misidentified as a Native American, which leads to reconsider American history from a perspective of someone who can be considered a settler colonial. Thus, Mockett’s creative nonfiction often has long sequences relating to Native American history and culture and exploring the traumatic lineage of land dispossession. The other element that is absolutely striking about the work is Mockett’s incredible attention to detail. She wants to paint these harvesters and the lives they lead, along with the equipment they use with tenderness, care, and complexity. These individuals spark off the page, so much so that, even as I found myself so often disagreeing with their perspectives on certain issues, I could understand their rationales. Mockett also has such a gifted eye for describing the landscape. There is something particularly immersive about the way Mockett gives us a sense of the different types of wheat, the gradations in the land, the weather that has befallen the crew, and the curve in a road. It is a stunning prose, something that falls deeply into in these troubling times. A final note is that I found Mockett’s friendships with some of the crew to be especially affecting. There’s a point in the text where Mockett comes to realize that her outsider status has partly been embraced by Eric’s son Juston and another of Juston’s friends named Michael. It is they, Mockett comes to realize, that have all gone to college and thus may be considered as having too many “ideas” in their heads, but we’ll revel in their self-consciousness and their philosophical examinations, as it lets this particular work soar to ever greater heights. You almost feel as though you’re eavesdropping on an intimate conversation about the meaning of life.

 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/american-harvest

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A Review of Rahul Kanakia’s We are Totally Normal (HarperTeen, 2020)

Posted by: jacobballew

 ·       

Imprint: HarperTeen

·       On Sale: 03/31/2020

·       Pages: 288

·       List Price: 17.99 USD

·       Age: 14+

 

So, at one point, I was supposed to read Rahul Kanakia’s debut, Enter Title Here, but the protagonist of that work drove me insane, and I crashed out of the novel big time. In any case, I have returned to review Kanakia’s next work We Are Totally Normal (HarperTeen, 2020), and I am more than happy to tell you that I didn’t crash out and found this work to be an especially important addition to the YA canon given its focus on queer relationships. Let’s let the official, editorial description get us start, as per usual: “In this queer contemporary YA, perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story, Nandan’s perfect plan for junior year goes awry after he hooks up with a guy for the first time. Nandan’s got a plan to make his junior year perfect, but hooking up with his friend Dave isn’t part of it—especially because Nandan has never been into guys. Still, Nandan’s willing to give a relationship with him a shot. But the more his anxiety grows about what his sexuality means for himself, his friends, and his social life, the more he wonders whether he can just take it all back. Is breaking up with Dave—the only person who’s ever really gotten him—worth feeling ‘normal’ again?” So, much of this novel does revolve around the complicated dance that is the relationship between Dave and Nandan. We are restricted to Nandan’s perspective, so much of what we begin to see is how confused Nandan is about his sexuality and his identity. What I appreciated about this novel is that, despite how forward thinking we might be today, the labels that we’ve given for certain practices—sexual or otherwise—ultimately lead to restricted ways of thinking that can affect those who are exploring what intimacy and desire mean to them. This issue is especially true for Nandan, who wonders if he is queer or not, aromatic or not, asexual or not. None of the labels quite perfectly define him and that’s where we are left when the novel does finally end. Second, I really appreciated the subtle way in which the novel weaves in a coming out narrative for an Asian American character. In this case, Nandan’s background—he is South Asian American—doesn’t come to bear a significant amount on the plot but nevertheless, the nonchalant way in which his mother embraces Nandan’s same-sex relationship with Dave was absolutely eye-opening and certainly contrasts with other novels concerning queer Asian American issues and contexts (such as Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla’s Ode to Lata). If there is an element of what we might call queer Asian American optimism, we’ll find it to be truly revolutionary in the sense that there are so few examples of this kind of depiction within YA or elsewhere. I do think that this novel will not be everyone’s cup of tea. The focus on high school antics, often devoid of a larger sense of the political and historical texture of the contemporary moment, almost seems a bit insulated. Characters are primarily concerned with who they are hanging out with, the next amazing party, and how another person might feel about them. To be sure, these issues are pressing and certainly germane to young teenagers, but some may find this kind of perspective to be dissonant alongside these strange, viral times that we are living in. At the same time, this type of story might strike some as the perfect salve precisely because of the heightened state of anxiety in which we find ourselves meshed. 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062865816/we-are-totally-normal/

 

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A Review of Sheena Kamal’s No Going Back (HarperCollins, 2020)

Posted by: jacobballew

 

So, Roxane Gay provides one of the marketing blurbs, which I agreed with wholeheartedly, for this final book, No Going Back (HarperCollins 2020) in Sheena Kamal’s Nora Watts series: “If you’re looking for a dark, moody, complex thriller with a complex woman protagonist this is your series. I love love love these books." This blurb is precisely why I’ve stuck with this series for all of the books. Let’s let the official description get this review started: “Find your enemy. Before he finds you. Nora Watts has a talent for seeing what lies beneath strangers’ surfaces, and for knowing what they’re working hard to keep hidden. Somehow, it’s the people closest to her she has trouble truly connecting with. In the case of Bonnie, the teenage daughter Nora gave up for adoption, she has to keep trying. For Bonnie has a target on her back—and it’s all because of Nora. Two years ago, Bonnie was kidnapped by the wealthy Zhang family. Though Nora rescued her, she made a powerful enemy in Dao, a mysterious triad enforcer and former head of the Zhangs’ private security. Now Dao is out for revenge, and she needs to track him down in order to keep herself—and Bonnie—safe. On Dao’s trail, Nora forms an unlikely partnership with Bernard Lam, an eccentric playboy billionaire with his own mysterious grudge to bear, and reunites with Jon Brazuca, ex-cop turned private investigator and Nora’s occasional ally. From Canada to southeast Asia they pursue Dao, uncovering a shadowy criminal cabal. But soon, the trail will lead full circle to Vancouver, the only home Nora’s ever known, and right to the heart of her brutal past.” If the description is plot heavy, it’s really because the novel still has to stand on its own, but this particular third installment is reliant upon some information from the first in the series. Dao continues to rear his villainous head, and the vendetta is at end game in this particular book. Nora is, of course, sick of it. She doesn’t want to deal with constantly being hunted or trailed, but she also doesn’t know enough about Dao’s connections, so she attempts to find him before he finds her. This tactic, as you can imagine, doesn’t really go well, and Nora has to rely upon some very rich and morally questionable individuals to find a way to get to Dao. In the meantime, the on-again-off-again thing she has with Brazuca continues to present its own set of problems. In terms of plotting, I felt this book was the weakest because much of it involves setting us up for the end, but what keeps us invested is what Roxane Gay mentioned in the beginning: Nora is such a textured character, with so many conflicted interior thoughts that we keep following her even when not a lot is going on. Also, Kamal has managed to construct a super interesting set of side characters. Alongside the aforementioned Brazuca, Kamal has the help of some other friends that make reading this particular narrative quite lively even when the plotting is revolving mostly around surveillance and information gathering. I’m sad to see the series end but I’m sure Kamal will have much more in store for us in the future.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062869777/no-going-back/

 

 

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A Review of Tishani Doshi’s Small Days and Nights (W.W. Norton, 2020).

Posted by: jacobballew

 

Well, another wonderful and luminescent novel for 2020. Tishani Doshi’s Small Days and Nights (W.W. Norton, 2020) is a welcome return to the fictional form for this writer, whose been focused on poetry prior to this point (with the exception of The Pleasure Seekers). Let’s let Norton’s official site give us some critical information: “A captivating and clear-eyed story of two sisters caught in a moment of transformation, set against the vivid backdrop of modern India. Escaping her failing marriage in the United States, Grace Marisola has returned to Pondicherry to cremate her mother. Once there, she receives an unexpected inheritance—a property on the isolated beaches south of Madras—and discovers a sister she never knew she had: Lucia, four years older, who has spent her life in a residential facility. Settling into the pink house on its spit of wild beach, Grace builds a new and precarious life with Lucia, the village housekeeper Mallika, the drily witty Auntie Kavitha, and an ever-multiplying band of dogs, led by the golden Raja. In the lush wilderness of Paramankeni, with its vacant bus stops colonized by flying foxes, its temples shielded by canopies of teak and tamarind, where every dusk the fishermen line the beach smoking and mending their nets, Grace feels that she has come to the very end of the world. But her attempts to leave her old self behind prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury, and bewilderment of life with Lucia.

In fierce, lyrical prose, Doshi presents an unflinching portrait of contemporary India, exploring the tensions between urban and rural life, modernity and tradition, duty and freedom. Luminous, funny, surprising, and heartbreaking, Small Days and Nights is a story of the ties that bind, the secrets we bury, and the sacrifices we make to forge lives that have meaning.” This book was fascinating to read during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s this way that I feel like I am projecting this moment of so much collective precarity into the texts. The somewhat isolated beachside location in which Grace and Lucia reside almost seem as if in a speculative fictional world, away from the horrors of this COVID business. Yet, at the same time, there are different forms of struggle and conflict that this realist world does present us with: one of the most pressing are the land grabbers, who want to pressure Grace to sell her property and even resort to bullying. I will provide one huge spoiler—so, look away now unless you’ve read it or just don’t care to know—that Grace’s older sister Lucia is in a “residential facility” because she was born with Down’s Syndrome, and Grace’s parents decide (at that point) that they cannot care for her. Grace only discovers the existence of Lucia upon her mother’s death. Doshi chooses to provide us with a key bit of information later on in the text: Grace’s mother pens a letter to Grace, requesting that Grace look after Lucia; this letter is given to Grace only after she has died. Grace takes this letter, as something of a mission, to integrate Lucia into her life and perhaps to make a decision that would be different than her own parents’. By that point, Grace’s and Lucia’s parents have already separated, with their father returning to his ethnic homeland of Italy. The home that Grace and Lucia live in is a sort inheritance and a property that is bequeathed, we realize, with the hope that these two sisters would reunite under more felicitous circumstances. The problem is, as you might also expect, that Grace is not prepared for the care required for Lucia. This issue leads to the main conflict of the novel, leaving us wondering whether or not Grace is truly prepared for living this new life in such a remote location and without much assistance for Lucia’s care. From my humble readerly perspective, Doshi’s novel soars because of its absolutely exquisite prose. Much like other poets who venture into the fictional terrain like Ocean Vuong and Michael Ondaatje, it is an absolute pleasure to read this story. The tiniest of moments can ring out with an exceptional precision, which is perfectly paired with the intimacy that this story brings to two sisters, rediscovering each other and finding their way into a family unit.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://wwnorton.com/books/small-days-and-nights

 

 

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A Review of Clarisa Goenawan’s The Perfect World of Miyako Sumida (Soho, 2020).

Posted by: jacobballew

I really enjoyed Clarisa Goenawan’s debut, Rainbirds, which was this strange, subtle noir set in Japan. She returns to that locale for The Perfect World of Miyako Sumida (Soho, 2020). Like her debut, there is a mystery (sort of) that mobilizes the plot: the titular Miyako Sumida commits suicide, so we’re trying to get to the point where we realize why she might have been driven to the act. Let’s get some more official information on this text elsewhere: “From the critically acclaimed author of Rainbirds comes a novel of tragedy and dark histories set in Japan. University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away in a remote mountainside village, but what, or whom, was she running from? To Ryusei, a fellow student at Waseda; Chie, Miwako’s best friend; and Fumi, Ryusei’s older sister, Miwako was more than the blunt, no-nonsense person she projected to the world. Heartbroken, Ryusei begs Chie to take him to the village where Miwako spent her final days. While he is away, Fumi receives an unexpected guest at their shared apartment in Tokyo, distracting her from her fear that Miwako’s death may ruin what is left of her brother’s life. Expanding on the beautifully crafted world of Rainbirds, Clarissa Goenawan gradually pierces through a young woman’s careful façade, unmasking her most painful secrets.” Goenawan really pushed herself in terms of narrative discourse. In this particular novel, there are at least three narrative perspectives. The first is given to Ryu: we see as he falls in love with Miyako but is increasingly frustrated by her distant nature. The second is given to Chie, who gives us more texture about Miyako’s life, building up the mystery behind Miyako’s backstory. We discover that Miyako used to post under a fake identity in an online diary forum where she discussed what seemed to be problematic sexual encounters with a mysterious entity. The final chapter is given to Fumi, who is Ryu’s older sister. As we discover early on, Fumi is trans and has negotiated that identity primarily in secret. The surprise that Goenawan leaves us in the third section really lifts this work above the previous sections, and I’m inserting my vague spoiler warning here. You can tell Goenawan was working toward this ending, but the payoff is super impressive because you’re not quite sure if the novel is actually going to cross a specific generic line, which it does. As always, Goenawan has a real gift for giving us a sense of space and geography, culture and character. The second section, which is set in a more remote part of Japan, really gives the readers a glimpse into a different narrative time and space and generates an explicit structure for the novel. In terms of the Miyako suicide arc, I didn’t find that aspect to be the most compelling. Indeed, the characters who orbit Miyako end up being, in some sense, far more interesting, which is appropriate given the fact that they are given the central narrative perspectives. An impressive sophomore effort! =)

Buy the Book Here:

https://sohopress.com/books/the-perfect-world-of-miwako-sumida/

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A Review of Alexandra Chang’s Days of Distraction

Posted by: jacobballew






In this review, I cover Alexandra Chang’s debut Days of Distraction (Ecco, 2020). Let’s let the official description do some work for us: “A wry, tender portrait of a young woman—finally free to decide her own path, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely—from a captivating new literary voice. The plan is to leave. As for how, when, to where, and even why—she doesn’t know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. And when her longtime boyfriend, J, decides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school, she sees an excuse to cut and run. Moving is supposed to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history, she must confront a question at the core of her identity: What does it mean to exist in a society that does not notice or understand you? Equal parts tender and humorous, and told in spare but powerful prose, Days of Distraction is an offbeat coming-of-adulthood tale, a touching family story, and a razor-sharp appraisal of our times.” The thing to note right away from this description is that the narrator is not given a name, so I’m going to provide you with a spoiler warning right away: look away if you don’t want to know. Our narrator is none other than a character named Alexandra (which isn’t revealed until third quarters of the way into the novel). If you do some cursory research, you also find out that the author, Alexandra Chang once worked as a journalist in the tech industry in the Bay Area. So, we’re obviously working within the frame of the autobiographical novel. I always find these types of texts interesting because you can’t help but wonder what has been fictionalized and what has not. In any case, the novel is structured basically in vignettes. The first quarter or so focuses on Alexandra’s life in the Bay Area and the complicated and often unfulfilling work that she is engaging in. Her boyfriend’s graduate school admission proves to give her a reboot, but things start to change when they move to Ithaca, New York. What Chang’s novel does best is to provide readers how an individual comes into race consciousness. For someone like our narrator, who is used to parsing out lots of information and digesting it, her interests lead her to explore Asian American history, especially with respect to interracial relationships and early figurations of Asian American women. These forays lead her to wonder about her own relationship with J, which eventually leads to a rupture point. Alexandra is then led to visit her father (who has long been separated from Alexandra’s mother), who lives in China. The time she has with her father seems to give her the perspective to return to her relationship with a new sense of purpose and possibility. Yet, I was skeptical. I found this narrator quite introspective in a way that J did not seem to be. The rapprochement that the narrative offers up between J and Alexandra seems to be one that may not be lasting, or at least I thought so. Nevertheless, Chang gives us some sublime prose and an absolutely crystal-clear view into the process by which one comes to terms with their own sense of racial and gendered social difference. A writer to watch.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062951809/days-of-distraction/

 

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A Review of Sameer Pandya’s Members Only

Posted by: jacobballew

2020 must be the year of the Asian American sports novels. Following the brilliances found in both Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks (field hockey) and Gish Jen’s The Resisters (baseball), Sameer Pandya’s Members Only (Houghton Mifflin, 2020) brings us into the racially fraught world of both tennis and academics. Pandya is of course the author of the outstanding collection The Blind Writer, which I earlier reviewed on AALF. Let’s let the official Houghton page give us some more key information about Pandya’s polemic novel: “First the white members of Raj Bhatt’s posh tennis club call him racist. Then his life falls apart. Along the way, he wonders: where does he, a brown man, belong in America? Raj Bhatt is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California, with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he’s cautiously come to love. But it’s there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke. The committee turns on him, no matter the years of prejudice he’s put up with. And worse still, he soon finds his job is in jeopardy after a group of students report him as a reverse racist, thanks to his alleged ‘anti-Western bias.’ Heartfelt, humorous, and hard-hitting, Members Only explores what membership and belonging mean, as Raj navigates the complicated space between black and white America.” Pandya’s novel starts out with a racial controversy, one that is perhaps ever more acute given the state of America at this very moment. Raj sits in a very uneasy position at his local tennis club, one of the very few minorities, so when his racially insensitive joke falls on deaf ears, he is forced to reconsider his place not only in the club but also his positionality vis-à-vis other racial groups. What resonates with me the most is the complicated way in which racial discourses are used to police those who are advocating for racial justice in the first place. This conundrum is best apparent in the fact that Raj is considered not being politically correct in relation to his tennis club, even as the club itself has been mired in structural racisms in the way that it selectively admits new members. The other element that was absolutely fascinating was the way in which the liberal faculty member finds himself in a problematic position with respect to politically oriented lectures that are then weaponized against him. Pandya’s representation reminds us of the way in which the university is also a corporate site with students that function as consumers. The question that this particular plot development brings up is the possibilities of academic freedom in light of student expectations about what a good education might or might not be. The strongest characteristic of the novel is no doubt Pandya’s incisive character depiction. Written in the first person, Raj reads as a no-nonsense figure, one who becomes enmeshed in circumstances that are almost outside of his control. I use the word “almost” because there’s always a sense that Raj is going to do whatever he can to advocate for his strong sense of justice, giving this novel a firm and compelling foundation. Oh, and the novel is of course, well suited to fans of tennis, though I must admit, I wish there was a little bit more of those elements in there =).

 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/Members-Only/9780358098546

 

 

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Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn

Posted by: jacobballew

A Review of Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn (Katherine Tegen Books, 2020)

 

Imprint: Katherine Tegen Books

On Sale: 05/26/2020

List Price: 18.99 USD

 

One thing I shouldn’t have done before reading Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn (Katherine Tegen Books, 2020) was to look up the description of the book up on the internet first. The book is currently being advertised on some sites as part of a two-book series, so I was ready for this one to finish out the issues it set forth in the first in the series (The Tiger at Midnight). In any case, let’s let the official marketing burb give us some crucial information: “A stolen throne. A lost princess. A rescue mission to take back what’s theirs. For Kunal and Esha, finally working together as rebels, the upcoming Sun Mela provides the perfect guise for infiltrating King Vardaan’s vicious court. Kunal returns to his role as dedicated soldier, while Esha uses her new role as adviser to Prince Harun to seek allies for their rebel cause. A radical plan is underfoot to rescue Jansa’s long-lost Princess Reha—the key to the throne. But amidst the Mela games and glittering festivities, much more dangerous forces lie in wait. With the rebel’s entry into Vardaan’s court, a match has been lit, and long-held secrets will force Kunal and Esha to reconsider their loyalties—to their countries and to each other. Getting into the palace was the easy task; coming out together will be a battle for their lives. In book two of Swati Teerdhala’s epic fantasy trilogy, a kingdom will fall, a new ruler will rise, and all will burn.” I should have read this particular description because I would have been prepared for the fact that it was a trilogy. About two thirds of the way through the narrative, I got anxious. I was thinking to myself: there are too many open threads and the plot is moving too slow to resolve them. I was right because, well, there’s a third book! The biggest reveal is probably related to the whereabouts of Princess Reha. Part of the conundrum that Teerdhala has put herself in is how to extend the issue of the romance plot alongside the political intrigue that is occurring in her complicated world of shapeshifters, magic, and bonds with the gods. After the first in the series, it was quite clear that Kunal and Asha were an “endgame” type couple, so this installment had to throw something into the equation that would destabilize that. Teerdhala figures out how to deal with this issue while also making the political gamesmanship that was tracking throughout the second in the series end on an even more precarious note. For these reasons, the second in the series is supremely readable, especially over the last hundred pages. If I have a minor critique with this text, it is the one that plagues so many second installments in a trilogy, there is just quite a lot of set up. Indeed, I found myself very impatiently moving through the first half of the book, wondering where we were being led to. Nevertheless, Teerdhala has made quite the complicated and lush fictional world, one filled with enough tantalizing loose ends to make the third something that readers will be impatiently waiting for. As a scholar of Asian American literature, what I find particularly striking about this series is Teerdhala’s desire to make her fictional world unequivocally ethnic, with the schism between Dharka and Jansa bringing especially rich tension to the plotting. This kind of allegorizing of ethnic and social difference creates a politically dynamic speculative terrain that makes The Archer at Dawn rise above others in the genre.

 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062869241/the-archer-at-dawn/

 

 

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