The family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

 

Name of Book: The Family Chao

Author: Lan Samantha Chang 

ISBN: 978-0-393-86807-4

Publisher: Norton

Type of book: Wisconsin, drama, relationship, contemporary, immigration, Asian American and Chinese community, murder, mystery, trial, relationships, motives 

Year it was published: 2022

Summary:

One of Literary Hub's and The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of 2022

A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Mystery of 2022

An acclaimed storyteller returns with “a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery” that explores “family, betrayal, passion, race, culture and the American Dream” (Jean Kwok).

The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last.

Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead—presumed murdered—and his sons find they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens—and the family dog meets an unexpected fate—Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father’s outsized appetites and their own future survival.

Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.

Characters:

The characters include Dagou Chao eldest legitimate son of Leo and Winnie Chao. He is passionate, artistic, a detail oriented chef, but at the same time a hedonistic profligate who longs for love and often doesn't know what he wants. Ming is the second son,a  coldly brilliant man who only cares for earning money and who wants to get as far away as possible from his family. James Chao is the youngest who doesn't know Chinese but loved deeply and feels deeply. He is perhaps the closest to Leo Chao. Leo Chao is the patriarch who keeps a lot of secrets from his wife and sons be it affairs or other issues. He is rude, hateful, snarky, and isn't easy to like. Winnie is the matriarch who gave everything up to be a nun, but still loves Leo deeply. Brenda is an American girl who recently got back with Dagou, and who is seen as someone who sleeps with anything that moves. Katherine is a Chinese girl who has been adopted by Caucasian parents and who has been engaged to Dagou for twelve years. She is ambitious and by Ming she is seen as fetishizing Chinese culture. Alice Wa is an artist who seems to lack a heart in my opinion. O-lan is a mysterious chef who stays away from fraternizing with everyone.  

Theme:

I keep thinking the theme has something to do with immigration and family, maybe he complex bonds between the two 

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative from James's, Ming's and Dagou's points of views. I cannot recall if there are other points of view. The story takes place in Haven, Wisconsin and stretches about a year or so, with breaks in between. It is also divided into two parts: first part are few days leading up to December 25th, and second part deals with trial and it's aftermath. The focus is a lot on the characters with very little redeemable personality. The masterful way the tensions are captured between the immigrant community of a Chinese enclave versus their white neighbors is something that is rarely seen in the immigrant storied I picked up. Although I know the story is based on the brothers karamazov, i also wonder if Pearl Bucks books also play a role, in particular the good earth trilogy. ( namely Sons and A House Divided, although at this point I am saying Sons...) The name O-lan is of the matriarch of The Good Earth, and personalities, oh boy, first son was a hedonistic profligate in SONS and this novel; second son a hardworking miser, and third son a virgin who only loved one woman as well as calculating and who rarely needed his brothers. 

 
Author Information:
(From goodreads)

Lan Samantha Chang was born in Appleton, Wisconsin and attended college at Yale where she earned her bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies. She worked in publishing in New York City briefly before getting her MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford. She is currently the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts at the University of Iowa and the Director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the first woman, and the first Asian American, to hold that position.

Chang's first book is a novella and short stories, titled Hunger (1998). The stories are set in the US and China, and they explore home, family, and loss. The New York Times Book Review called it "Elegant.… A delicately calculated balance sheet of the losses and gains of immigrants whose lives are stretched between two radically different cultures." The Washington Post called it "A work of gorgeous, enduring prose." Her first novel, Inheritance (2004), is about a family torn apart by the Japanese invasion during World War II. The Boston Globe said: "The story…is foreign in its historical sweep and social detail but universal in its emotional truth." Chang's latest novel, All Is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost (2011), follows two poets and their friendship as they explore the depths and costs of making art. The book received a starred review from Booklist and praise: "Among the many threads Chang elegantly pursues—the fraught relationships between mentors and students, the value of poetry, the price of ambition—it is her indelible portrait of the loneliness of artistic endeavor that will haunt readers the most in this exquisitely written novel about the poet’s lot." Chang's fourth book and third novel, The Family Chao, is forthcoming in 2022.

Chang has received fellowships from MacDowell, the American Library in Paris, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As the fifth director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Chang has been fundamental to the increase of racial, cultural, and aesthetic diversity within the program, and has mentored a number of emerging writers. In 2019, she received the Michael J. Brody Award and the Regents' Award for Excellence from the University of Iowa.

Website: https://lansamanthachang.com/

Opinion:

I hadn't read the brothers karamazov and due to anti-Judaic references, I don't have interest in reading it. But wow, this book was pretty brutal, had very dark comedy written in it, and very addictive. I also am wondering when did she have time to meet my family? My family is from Russia and I saw a lot of my father in the character of the patriarch, Leo. I also saw myself and my younger sister in the characters of Dagou and Ming ( I resemble Dagou.)  My mother definitely falls into Winnie character. Immigration or Asian-American it's relatable, although I will warn the reader that Lan Samatha Chang isn't afraid of showing the ugly sides of her four characters, and the humor wasn't revealed to me at first reading, but perhaps I will see it in the future. 

This was given for review 

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)