Book No. 42 of 2020
I came pretty close to putting this book down, not because it was bad (it’s not!) but because I didn’t think I was in the right headspace for another bleak, death-ridden account of life in the Wild West. (Téa Obreht’s Inland, Book No. 31, was fresh in my mind.)
The second part of the story kicked in and I was hooked; the story is still bleak as hell, but it’s also so rich with different shades of survival, of dreaming and self-discovery. The incorporation of romanized Mandarin, of the many subtle faces of racism (from the benevolent to the clinical to the violent), and the characters’ search for belonging and ownership in an unforgiving country cast a much-needed light on a segment of history that is all too often whitewashed and cleanly repackaged. (While the story focuses on the members of a Chinese-American family, it also acknowledges and pays homage to the many other people with claims to the land, and questions the legitimacy of settler principles.) Throughout the story, Zhang deftly uses privilege as a mirror to call attention to the inequality of the American dream.
Similar Reads
As stated, there were lots of similarities to Téa Obreht’s Inland, not only because of the setting, but also because of certain themes and imagery (which I won’t spoil here).
Although they are very different books, I think this pairs well with Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings, which nakedly identifies the flavors of racism found in Zhang’s story.
Lots of thematic parallels to Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (again, some specific things which I won’t spoil here).
If this and Inland weren’t enough for you, The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami is another tale of survival in the history of American colonization through the eyes of a POC.