Starred review from December 6, 2021
Chang follows up All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost with an ingenious and cunning reboot of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The harrowing and humorous family drama is wrapped in a murder mystery about a family of Chinese immigrants headed by patriarch Leo Chao, who builds a successful Chinese restaurant in Haven, Wis., with his wife, Winnie. Like Leo’s Dostoyevskian equivalent, Fyodor Karamazov, he has three sons: the youngest, James, who’s lost his Mandarin; the middle, Ming, who now lives in Manhattan; and the eldest, Dagou, the restaurant’s head chef. All is not well in the family. The sons reunite in Haven for the annual Christmas party to find that Winnie has tired of her tyrannical husband and has left him to seek spiritual enlightenment. The locals, meanwhile, have turned on Leo, as well: some in response to his cutthroat business dealings, others out of racism. After the party, Leo turns up dead, the authorities suspect foul play, and Dagou is charged with murder. As in Dostoyevsky’s novel, there is a trial, and important Chao family secrets will come to light, but Chang retells the story in a manner all her own, adding incisive wit while retaining the pathos. In this timely, trenchant, and thoroughly entertaining book, an immigrant family’s dreams are paid for in blood. For Chang, this marks a triumphant return.
June 1, 2022
The brothers Chao are reunited at the family's Chinese restaurant in Haven, WI, for a Christmas party that evolves into a showdown, a murder, and a trial. Eldest brother, Dagou, demands that patriarch Leo make good on his promise to give him part ownership of the business; Leo refuses. When Leo, a charismatic but cruel man, dies under suspicious circumstances, Dagou is charged with his murder. In addition to three brothers, Leo, and long-suffering matriarch Winnie, there's a complex web of secondary and tertiary characters. Tokyo-born narrator Brian Nishii gives characters accents appropriate to their history: a waitress who knows little English speaks with a thick Mandarin accent, while Winnie, who has lived in Wisconsin for decades, has a subtler one. While his accents are confident, Nishii's characterizations are less consistent, but he shines as the youngest brother, James, a college freshman just beginning to understand himself independent of his family. In James's chapters, Nishii's narration is gentle and occasionally hesitant. Less successful is Nishii's portrayal of Leo, a man who's often described as charming but comes off only as boorish. VERDICT Chang's (All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost) latest is recommended where the print title is in demand.--Emily Calkins
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.