Review
Of Transoceanic Lights by Sui Li,
Harvard Square Editions, New York, 2015
By Luke
Salisbury
Transoceanic Lights is a first novel
about a Chinese immigrant family's first four years in America, but labels do not
adequately describe the high quality of writing, subtlety of construction, or
fresh look at the subject. The story is
largely told by the oldest son, who was five at the time of arrival, and sometimes
in his mother's voice. The child is
enormously intelligent, and his narration is seasoned by comments from years
after the action, but these, rather than intruding, or lessening the story,
broaden and deepen it.
The novel
opens: "The clouds below drifted in the wind and swelled into rain-laden
anvils the size of mountains before dispersing into wisps of cobweb."
Much of the tale
is contained and foreshadowed in that opening sentence. This is late twentieth century
immigration. The family is on a
jetliner. One world can be left for
another in a matter of hours, and the transoceanic lights—the dreams, hopes,
illusions that pull and uproot the family (The word will only be used once in
the text and beautifully: in the last line)—are literally and figuratively, in
the clouds. The reality awaiting them will
indeed be "rain-laden" and the crushing reality of immigrant labor will
be an "anvil."
A sense of
"dispersing" pervades the novel. The essence of this story is change. The first day of school will become third
grade and fifth grade. The difficult
marriage between the narrator's parents will get worse. Work will not get easier. Work will always be work. The horrid relatives—and there is doozy of an
aunt and a hilarious awful cut-up cousin—remain horrid, but time is
moving. America does not stand still, no
matter how difficult life is. Everyone
is in transition—on the move—toward the transoceanic lights. This seamless novel beautifully shows the passage
of time, mixing familiar worlds of childhood and the very trying world of
immigrant adults.
The author,
like his main character, was born in China and came to America at an early age. He himself is "transoceanic." Chinese?
American? Chinese-American? His child narrator is a fascinating mixture of
all three—as newcomers to America have always been, as we amalgamate, cling,
and change, into that shape-shifting phenomenon we happily call an
American. "Cobweb" strikes me
as especially, Asian. Think of the
Cobweb Forest in Kurosawa's great Macbeth
adaptation, Throne of Blood, where Washizu
and Miki are lost in the violent, stormy Cobweb Forest, inhabited by demons and
the Witch who makes the fatal prophecy. One
feels another sensibility in this
novel. It's exact and appropriate.
The word is
used again: "The clarity of those days is long gone. All the memories have vanished, replaced by
figments, cobwebs, and ghosts."
This is more than a story of immigrant hardship; it is a story of and
about memory. Ma, the mother, remembers
China and her loving father, who can not help her now, not with work, or mean
treatment by her husband's family. Ma remembers
China but "all the strands that wove the fabric of those memories together
belonged to a time never again to become present."
The writing is
remarkable for its lack of self-pity. Coming to America means work in an older
brother's fast-food Chinese-American restaurant for Ba, the father; in
restaurants for Ma, where she labors equally hard, but doesn't have the security
of family. Ba returns at night "to
collapse from merciless exhaustion and wake up the next morning to resume the
perpetual cycle." That cycle includes
nightly arguments over money, which he hides from Ma. Ma says of working in America: "...it's
all backwards, if I work hard someone thinks I'm a threat and tries to get me
fired, if I slack off, out the door I go, and if I work just right, then it all
depends on the whim of the boss."
It's not
that the characters don't complain. They
do nothing but complain, and have reason to, but the novel doesn't
complain. The novel moves from one grade
to the next for the narrator (A terrific evocation of childhood with its fears,
bullies, accidents, friendships and lost friendships), the years of hard work
for the parents, the birth of another child (A powerful scene. The author is a doctor and the reader is the
beneficiary), and finally Ma's return to China to visit her dying father, which
is terrific. The depiction of the Chinese
hospital is amazing. The reader may recall
the phrase 'don’t get sick in another country.' Transoceanic
Lights does not ask for pity or resort to nostalgia. This is life where no one has the option of
quitting. It's not the America I know.
The heart of
the book is the ferocious love Ma has for her children. She will work any job, call home any number
of times a day when the narrator takes care of his sister, put up with a man
she can not stand, not move back to China—for the sake of her children. Education is everything. The narrator can no more not be the best in
school than Ba or Ma can quit their jobs.
Ma is literally sacrificing her life and happiness for her children. Her son is her ticket to a better life and
he's known that since he was five years old.
Transoceanic Lights is very well
written. The style is fluent. It surprises, in the way a reader likes to be
surprised, takes chances, and fits the story the way a seasoned novelist suits
the word to the action. Ma's angry phone
calls to China become repetitive, but they are, of course, conversation, and
conversation can be repetitive, especially if you hate someone, as Ma comes to
hate Ba. The shifting points of view
move the story effectively. Several times
I was confused, but rereading solved the problem. The use of detail wonderful. Whether it be the nuanced smells of Asian food,
a new city, the family's American apartment which has "an odor...
occupying the corridor like a poltergeist," the filthy city streets of an
American Chinatown (The city is never named), or massive litter by the Pearl
River, the sense of place is marvelous. This
is a fine novel.
I doubt
there will be many better published this year.
Let me be the first to welcome a serious new talent to the room.
**** Luke Salisbury is a professor of English at Bunker Hill Community College
