Red Oblivion by Leslie Shimotakahara
Genre: mystery
Publisher: Dundurn
Publication date: October 15, 2019
Goodreads blurb:
“Family secrets surface when two sisters travel to Hong Kong to care for their ill father.
“When Jill Lau receives an early morning phone call that her elderly father has fallen gravely ill, she and her sister, Celeste, catch the first flight from Toronto to Hong Kong. The man they find languishing in the hospital is a barely recognizable shadow of his old, indomitable self.
“According to his housekeeper, a couple of mysterious photographs arrived anonymously in the mail in the days before his collapse. These pictures are only the first link in a chain of events that begin to reveal the truth about their father’s past and how he managed to escape from Guangzhou, China, during the Cultural Revolution to make a new life for himself in Hong Kong. Someone from the old days has returned to haunt him — exposing the terrible things he did to survive and flee one of the most violent periods of Chinese history, reinvent himself, and make the family fortune. Can Jill piece together the story of her family’s past without sacrificing her father’s love and reputation?” (from Goodreads)
My thoughts
Unfortunately, this was not one of my favorite books of the year.
A major part of the fault is mine. Netgalley had this categorized both as general adult fiction and mystery/thriller. This book has mystery elements, but is not a traditional mystery; the answers to Jill’s questions will be obvious to anyone who reads many mysteries. It certainly isn’t a thriller, either.
That’s not a knock. It’s just to say that it’s literary, I expected mystery, and my expectations were not met.
(This has happened before with certain books. I’ve made a note to myself to be more careful with what I request on NetGalley. If it’s categorized as both general/literary fiction and mystery/thriller, I’ll assume that it’s more the former than the latter. I hope to avoid this situation in the future, as it’s not fair to authors.)
Number 2 on the list of things that are my fault: I have never identified with stories where a sisterly relationship is a large factor. (Which may have been part of my issue with Fishnet, come to think of it.) While Jill and Celeste’s relationship isn’t the driving force in this story, it’s still a large part and as an only child, I couldn’t understand it.
Neither is the author’s fault. But it still influenced how I read this novel.
However, there was a lot to like about this book.
The writing quality
Shimotakahara has a lovely way with words. For the most part, her storytelling skills are top-notch. While I did feel that the pace dragged in many places, it wasn’t as slow as many literary novels I’ve read.
Cultural details
She paints a vivid image of a city of contradictions: modern technology exists beside old fashioned ways, such as clothes lines. (The cheap cost of housekeepers justifies the lack of a dryer or dishwasher.) Cantonese mixes with English words. Jill tells us,
“Words like okay and anyway and cool and what the f— and see ya always get said in English, for some reason.” (chapter 1)
It’s a city where the new never fully obliterates the old. The past is always there: Mao’s Red Guards, the impact of World War II on Hong Kong, the Cultural Revolutions of the mid-1960s. All of these still influence the residents of Hong Kong, particularly the older people like Ba, who lived through it.
The characters
Jill, Ba, and Celeste are well-developed characters. While I was unsure if I found Jill likable, I did sympathize with her issues. Her life revolves around her father’s desires. Even when she’s rebelling against them, his desires are still determining her actions: what she won’t do.
There were some things I didn’t enjoy, though. At several points, Jill is reading from a memoir. As both the memoir and the story are told from a first person point of view, it was difficult to shift between the two because of a lack of any distinguishing marks. (Nothing’s set apart in italics or quotation marks, that sort of thing.) I hope the final print edition corrects this. The memoir is fascinating, though.
I was unconvinced by Jill’s friendship with Terence, her only Hong Kong friend. To me, they didn’t seem like old friends. Also, the climax felt underwhelming.
Overall, this is a solid novel. It wasn’t really to my taste. But for those who like literary fiction, this is a good choice.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for a copy of Red Oblivion in exchange for an honest review.
Talk to me! What do you think?