From the outset, this is clearly a very thoughtfully put together novel. The author ponders how to render her characters’ names, characters who “move within various Chinese-speaking regions of the world”, to “denote their code-switching in a way that would feel accurate”. As many Chinese have experienced, their names become romanised in a variety of ways:
”Zhu became Chu, Jian became Chien, Guan became Kwan, and Zhang became Change” (p268).
I resonate with this, because my own surname romanised as ‘Lau’, was romanised for my father’s next brother as ‘Law’ and then for his subsequent siblings as ‘Low’.
Karissa Chen opts to refer to her characters in a whole range of spellings; she makes the argument this different way of being denoted may broaden or change the way they think of themselves. Our protagonists are Suchi or Sue or Tsai Suji, Sou Kei, and Howard, Haiwen, Haewen, depending on whether they are speaking in English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Shanghainese. And even when the characters are speaking to others who share the same linguistic set as themselves, the choice of language denotes so much; intimacy of course, status, intent, also in recognition of their geographical present, etc. For example, after much has happened in both their lives, Suchi’s sister, Sulan, meets Suchi’s childhood sweetheart in New York, the boy who was her neighbour and who broke her sister’s heart, and whom they had not seen for decades nor even knew if he was alive; in what language should she address him on such an meaning-laden and fraught occasion?
’Wang Haiwen,’ she said, switching to Mandarin, and while it was strong and clear, so different from her halting English, it was less intimate than Shanghainese”(p269)
Chen’s alertness to the nuances of code-shifting will delightful for diasporic readers who have spent a lifetime code-switching themselves.
The plotline moves between past and future in alternating chapters, between the earlier periods when Howard and Suchi are children growing up in a longtang in Shanghai and falling in love, and in California, in 2008, when Suchi is divorced and is living with her son and grandchild, and Howard is a widower, refusing to move in with either of his two daughter, though he delights in his grandchildren too. They meet again after decades of separation, and the chapters set in the past fill in the back story.
One nice thing about this story is how regionally focused it is. So many diasporic East Asian-American books come across as pan-Chinese. But this one comes across more authentically for its regional attachments, the names, the places, the customs, the foods. Howard joined the National Army although he was underaged, to spare his elder brother from being conscripted, given his brother had a wife and child already. Howard is already unusual to ‘normal’ families like Suchi’s, because his family had lived in Hong Kong and in the West. The novel moves from California to Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong (not in linear manner).
Howard goes on to spend a lot of his adult life in USA, cut off from his family behind the iron curtain. Howard finally manages to return to Shanghai in 1993, and although both parents have died, he reunited with his older brother and little sister. And their families. It was an emotional reunion of course, after decades apart, fraught for many political and familial reasons, but the emotional tone is very well handled by the author, capturing a wealth of meaning in the titles and names: Howard’s little sister addresses him as “Erge”, 2nd big brother, which she always has done. But her husband, whom Howard has never met, addresses him as “Erjiuzi”,
“it stuck Howard that this was the first time anyone had called him by this term for brother-in-law reserved only for his sister’s husband to use” (p209)
just as his niece calls him “Erjiu”, the first time he has been called by that title. In thus being addressed, Howard is occupying those roles for the first time, which is a poignant reminder of how much he has missed out on, and how those roles had lain dormant until now. When he gets into the car beside his little sister’s husband,
’Meifu,’ Howard said, acknowledging him. His first time addressing his little sister’s husband” (p210)
It is a meaning-filled moment because with those titles, come the intimate relationships, the rights and claims implicit in them, the acknowledgement of their unique bond, the positioning of one person to another in their social hierarchy that means so much in this culture.
I admit it took me a few pages to warm up to this novel, but once it was launched for me, it had a strong momentum of its own, and I enjoyed following the life stories of the protagonists. It is fascinating to see how each carried culture and language through the vicissitudes of their lives, and how much yearning and loss is hidden under the surface normalities. It was also a lovely study of one group of diasporic Chinese and their complexities, underlining how every group of diasporic Chinese have their differences from each other as well as from mainland China Chinese; linguistic differences of course, but also cultural differences, differences of experiences, opportunities, expectations, and ultimately, even values. And in Chen’s book, in a world where so many diasporic Chinese migrants feel out of place and misunderstood, why it means so much to meet someone of the same background and linguistic allegiances, when far from home, physical, imagined, and metaphorical.
Homeseeking
Karissa Chen
G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 2025.
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