Review: Caitlin Chung's Ship of Fates

Posted by: jacobballew

Wow, it’s been a long time since I reviewed something from the very cool indie press Lanternfish. Way back in the day, I read this funky, lovely little book by Vikram Paralkar called The Afflictions. Paralkar recently came out with a novel, Night Theater, which I have read! In any case, so I recently saw that they’d come out with another text of interest Caitlin Chung’s Ship of Fates (Lanternfish Press, 2020), and I am here to review it. First off, let’s give you some background from the official site: “In the gridlocked harbor of San Francisco's Barbary Coast, a ship hung with red paper lanterns draws crowds eager to gamble and drink. Aboard this red-lit ship, the fates of two young women will be altered irrevocably—and tied forever to that of an ancient lighthouse keeper who longs to be free. Set against the backdrop of Gold Rush–era San Francisco's Chinese immigrant community, Ship of Fates is a coming-of-age fairy tale that stretches across generations.” The first thing you’ll note right off the bat is that Ship of Fates has an intriguing structure. There are alternating narratives. There is a frame narrative involving a lighthouse keeper and her visitor and then there is an embedded narrative in which we get a sense of the lighthouse keeper’s life in a past period. The novel toys with a myth related to the “gold mountain,” famed in Chinese transnational circles as a nickname first for the West Coast of the United States and later for parts of Canada. In this particular novel, we find out that the lighthouse keeper is trying to fulfill the terms of a debt that she seems she can never repay. The story of how the lighthouse keeper continually comes to ruin is something that Chung patiently and beautifully lays out in exquisite prose and in her very talented, atmospheric production of setting. There is always something a little bit magical bubbling under the surface of Chung’s work, which certainly imbues the compelling Chinese/ American female characters with verve. Scenes that take place in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast ripple with tension and intrigue; you always feel as though the bottom of the plot is going to drop out from under you. An outstanding debut set primarily in the Gold Rush era. Let’s hope Chung has something in store for us soon.

 

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://lanternfishpress.com/shop/ship-of-fates

 

 

comments