Review | Book review: Hong Kong author Xu Xi explores shifting identities with her latest novel
An American Sinophile goes missing en route to Hong Kong, a simple plot device that Xu Xi uses as a catalyst for her metafictional reflections on the self in the age of globalisation. There are jokes too
by Xu Xi
C&R Press
The man in the title of the upcoming book by Hong Kong author Xu Xi, That Man in Our Lives, is Gordon Ashberry. But who is he? And where is he? And in what sense is he, or isn’t he, the protagonist of That Man in Our Lives? And is he or isn’t he somebody in whom the reader can wholeheartedly believe?
Questions such as these tease the reader of That Man in Our Lives. Gordon Ashberry, also known as Gordie, also known by his Chinese name Hui Guo, is a wealthy American Sinophile and unmarried womaniser who has never needed to work. When he turns 50, Gordie decides to give all his money away. A predatory Chinese authoress, Zhang Lianhe, also known as Minnie Chang, also known as Lullabelle, makes him the subject of a book published in America as Honey Money.
This is a success, and the resulting publicity sends him into self-imposed exile. He disappears from Tokyo airport, en route from New York to Hong Kong. Naturally, this leaves everybody in his immediate circle bemused, upset, and keen to track him down. The novel is particularly concerned with the reactions of his two closest friends, Harold Haight, and Larry Woo, and their families.
The blurb describes That Man in Our Lives as “The Transnational 21st Century Novel”. It’s certainly transnational. The action ranges between the US and Asia, with quick diversions to Europe. Xu Xi calls three New York women “upwardly global”, a brilliantly funny description that could apply to most of her characters. She is much concerned with the effects of globalisation: on individual lives; on nations, and diasporas; on languages.
Xu Xi’s ethnically Chinese characters in America frequently comment on whether they mix their English with Cantonese, or Putonghua/Mandarin, and whether they call it “Putonghua” or “Mandarin”, or whether they use Taiwanese terms, or a mixture of some or all of these. In this English-language novel, Chinese words are scattered throughout, some transliterated into roman script, and some left in Chinese characters. The author’s interest in the use of Chinese language beyond China is of a piece with her interest in Chinese identities in a globalised world.