Contemporary Fiction/Classics

The Night Tiger takes place in Malaya in the town of Ipoh during the 1930s and opens to a scene in which Dr. MacFarlane, the employer of an orphaned Chinese houseboy named Ren, is about to die. Before passing, the doctor makes one final request of the boy: that he find his missing severed finger lost years ago and reunite it with his body. Now there’s a strong sense of urgency here as Ren only has 49 days to complete the task; if he fails, his master’s spirit will roam the earth forever, unable to rest. Ren then arrives at the home of less-than-respectable surgeon William Acton with a letter of recommendation from MacFarlane, who told Ren before his death that he believed Acton will still have the finger that was amputated during an exploration years before but he needs to find the finger on his own and must not mention it to Acton.

So then we meet a young woman named Ji Lin who, though she has dreams of becoming a nurse, works instead as an apprentice dressmaker to adhere to her oppressive and abusive stepfather’s demands. Because of her mother’s gambling debts, however, Ji Lin also moonlights as a dancehall girl to help pay them off.

One evening, Ji Lin dances with a man and accidentally takes a small container from his pocket, only to discover later on that the object is a test tube with a shriveled severed finger inside. So we can only assume that this is the finger Ren must find and that now her fate will be linked with Ren’s. Desperate to get rid of it, she enlists the help of her step-brother Shin to help get it to its rightful owner.

There is also the fact that a tiger is prowling the town which is blamed on the several bizarre deaths that occurred in the village recently.

There are some who believe that the creature is, in fact, a were-tiger, a creature of Chinese superstition that has the ability to shapeshift into human form. It’s kind of the opposite of a werewolf because here we have an animal that shifts into a human rather than the other way around. At some point in the story, all three of their lives intertwine – the boy, the girl, and the tiger, creating danger for our two main characters. It’s also interesting how Ren and Ji Lin’s lives become linked through dreams and the events in the story.

This was such an atmospheric book with beautiful imagery, and the author has a knack for sucking you right into the story. There were several other interesting motifs as well, such as the repeated theme of the five Confucian virtues as well as the theme of actual twins.

I thought this was a lovely adventurous Asian-inspired fantasy steeped with mythology and it was a blast to read, with its blend of historical fiction, magical realism, mystery, possible murder and even a touch of romance, though the romance was a bit strange, to be sure.

Purchase the Night Tiger on Amazon

Purchase The Night Tiger on The Book Depository

Tin Man is an emotional character-driven story that opens in the 1960s and follows our two protagonists, Ellis and Michael who have been friends since they were children. But somewhere along the way, the friendship grew into something more.

Then the novel fast-forwards to the mid-1990s, and we learn that Ellis is married to a woman named Annie and Michael is out of the picture. Shifting back and forth between past and present, the author fills in the blanks, complete with agonizing pining, multiple tragedies, and death, rendering this a genuinely heart-wrenching story. I’ve seen this book referred to as “almost a love story” and I feel that’s an excellent description for it because it is definitely NOT a romance; but it is a profound exploration of the strong bonds of friendship.

The first half of the book is told from Ellis’s point of view and the second is told from Michael’s as they drift in and out of each other’s lives. I felt that the dual perspectives really added a depth and richness to the story as we experience both of their viewpoints in relation to the events in their lives.

There really isn’t much of a plot or storyline here — but rather, it’s more of an in-depth, introspective character study/memoir of two people and the bittersweet, complex story of their lives, loves, and losses. The story is at times dreamy and ethereal — almost haunting in places — as we flow in and out of each of the characters’ lives, so in this regard, I found it quite atmospheric and evocative.

Tin Man is a short book, so I can’t say too much about it without spoiling it, but even though it’s short, it packs a considerable punch. It’s a tender, beautiful tale of a first love with lush, lyrical writing that will break your heart in places. The story deals with some hard-hitting topics such as grief, longing, loss, sadness, regret, and loneliness.

It’s worth mentioning that there are no quotation marks used in the novel nor are there any chapter breaks so that, along with the switching back and forth between past and present (which isn’t always distinctive) may prove to be challenging for some folks. It definitely takes some getting used to.

Still, if you enjoy meandering character-driven novels, then I feel Tin Man is well worth a read as it is a beautiful, deeply emotional story and deals with many important topics such as friendship, desire, fitting in, family, and of course, grief and loss. There’s a lot going on here for such a small book and I don’t think it’s a story that I’ll forget about anytime soon.

Purchase Tin Man from The Book Depository

Purchase Tin Man from Amazon

Where’d You Go Bernadette is told in epistolary format and revolves around anti-social Bernadette Fox, a former genius-level architect who appears to be agoraphobic, impulsive and suffers from severe social anxiety; her mostly-absent husband Elgie who is an executive computer engineer at Microsoft; and their fifteen-year-old daughter Bee, who has overcome a congenital heart condition and is now a straight-A student at a progressive charter school. Bernadette doesn’t get along with any of the other mothers at her daughter’s school (she refers to them all as “gnats”) and is in a bitter battle with her next-door neighbor Audrey Griffin, who definitely has it out for Bernadette. When her daughter Bee states that she wants a trip to Antartica as the promised reward for her perfect grade, Bernadette freaks out about the trip and begins to have sort of a meltdown.

Everything comes crashing down on Bernadette after her rivalry with Audrey escalates resulting in a mudslide (yes, a mudslide!). After a failed intervention by her husband Elgie, Bernadette disappears without a trace. Now it’s up to her daughter Bee to figure out what happened to her mother. And that’s what she does: by putting together a gigantic compilation of a complex series of emails, voicemails, school memos to parents, faxes, doctor bills, newspaper articles and even doctor reports, all of which reveal Bernadette’s backstory and secret past, of which most people were unaware (I won’t spoil what her secret is). It through all of these devices that Bee tells her mother’s story.

This novel ended up being a fun and entertaining satire on wealth and privilege, with many of the characters being self-deluded and clueless, resulting in some quite humorous over-the-top scenes. Come to think of it, Bernadette’s entire family and all of those around her are all over-the-top caricatures. In fact, everyone seems a bit mad.

I especially loved Bernadette’s character. She’s wildly eccentric, quirky and super complex: a brilliant woman whose suppressed artist talents have resulted in depression and anxiety, yet she’s still hopeful at the end of the day.

There were also quite a few surprising plot twists in the story, and everything came together beautifully at the end. This was such a humorous and inventive novel, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I found myself chuckling out loud several times while working my way through the story.

I also appreciated that one of the themes of the story points out what can happen to our mental state if we suppress our inner talents and instead, simply choose to “settle.” All in all, I loved this wacky novel, and if you can appreciate satire with plenty of dark humor, and are willing to suspend disbelief a little, then this book is well worth the read.

Purchase Where’d You Go, Bernadette on The Book Depository

Purchase Where’d You Go, Bernadette on Amazon

I guess this is a Literary Fiction novel with just a smidgen of magical realism thrown in. Or perhaps not, I guess that’s up to the reader to decide.

So this book asks the question: If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

The story starts off in 1969 and follows the Gold children who sneak out to get their fortunes told by a mysterious woman who, according to gossip, has the ability to tell you the date that you’re going to die.

So each of the children, one by one, is called in by the psychic and each one is informed of their death day. Each of them then has to cope with this heavy bit of information, and we get to see what extent it determines how they live their lives.

So then we get their story, one child’s at a time, and we follow them to the last moments in their lives. In so doing, we get to see how their life unfolds knowing this information.

These dire prophecies drive them forward for the rest of their lives, seemingly influencing their decisions and even changing the course of their lives.

Some of them end up more reckless and take more risks than they might have otherwise. Others remain more cautious than they may have otherwise.

As I read along, I thought it interesting how the reader is prompted to wonder just how much of our lives are controlled by destiny or sheer luck if you will, and how much of it is controlled by our own conscious choices.

Interestingly, the fate of one of the characters specifically gave me pause and caused me to ask whether receiving a dire prediction as the Gold children did, could cause us to force those events to come to pass when they may not have occurred otherwise? So in this way, having too much information could end up working against us.

Or in the case of the Gold children, Was the fortune teller right? And, if so, do they possess the power to change the course of their own fates and decide their own destiny? That is to say, is our destiny predetermined or do we have a hand in changing what’s destined?

The story also made me wonder whether knowing our death date would cause us to live our lives to the fullest or would we instead live them with fear and dread of what’s coming? And in the case of our four characters, we can’t help but wonder whether their lives would have turned out the way they did were it not for the fortune teller?

This is definitely the kind of book that makes you uncomfortable while reading it — it’s a tough read in places, raw even. It’s a challenging novel as it forces up to consider profound themes such as life and death, destiny vs. free will, magic vs. science, religion, our tendency toward self-fulling prophecy, family, and regret to mention a few.

It’s no surprise then that the story is heartbreaking in more than a few places, but it’s also a deep, beautiful and magical story.

This is an incredible book, and I fell more and more in love with it as I progressed through each child’s story. I loved seeing how the fortune teller’s prediction impacted all of their lives, resulting in a riveting character study. All in all, a magnificent exploration of some weighty topics and I gave this five stars.

In this video, I review Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield — A gripping contemporary gothic fiction novel that I really loved.