A semi autobiographical historical fiction with comedic elements—only during the contemporary time period—is usually a bit of a hard sell for me, but the excellent flow and clear writing made this go by super fast.

William Ping is having a Very awkward dinner with his girlfriends Chinese-Canadian family, of which there are a few generations. Ping himself is third generation and is more white than Chinese. He’s confused about his identity and obviously hasn’t really dig into it until questions are posed to him directly, with his privilege with the wait staff and his ignorance of his grandfather and the impact he’s had on the community.

Then stuff gets pretty wild. He goes to the washroom and has a… mishap? The result of which a, I’m guessing Chinese folkloric/mythological creature that kind of acts like the ghost of Christmas past ends up hurtling him into his grandparents actual history. This begins the chronicling of the grandparent and the mystery of the letter, which is the bulk of the novel. And which pretty much ceases the millennial comedic beats as it’s subsumed by a new first person narrator.

It’s an interesting concept and I think the recounting of Real Canadian history from an immigrant is fascinating. It’s also very relevant to today, as the author mentions in their note at the end. Anti-Chinese, as well as other racism, is on the high end and only seems to get worse. I think this story does a good job of telling it how it was, grounded in lots of research the author did.

Only slightly does it falter. It is genre fiction, and I prefer a bit more weight to prose work, and the through line with the letter makes sense, but it seems to imply William need to do something with it beyond realizing it’s origins, and that never happens (unless I missed it?). Also, William has his lesson and there’s a bookend, but I was expecting the B plot that’s introduced with the girlfriend and parents and all that to have a different kind of bow tied onto it. In these ways it does feel like a debut novel, but it’s one I will certainly recommend and definitely enjoyed.