Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng.

 

 

           In an author’s note at the end of her explosive novel of racial hatred and discrimination, Celeste Ng is careful to stress that the themes she writes about are nothing new;  racism against Asian Americans is as old as immigration – The Yellow Peril lurks around every corner, as old and frightening as The Bogey Man, and when her story opens, those of mixed race are particularly vulnerable.

            Such a child is Bird, whose Chinese American mother Margaret fell in love with Ethan Gardner when they were students at Harvard.  They married and made a life for themselves in an Ivy League town;  Margaret was a published poet, and Ethan had tenure as a professor of Linguistics – and this section of the story is particularly beautiful, for Ms Ng uses language like notes of music, making gorgeous melodies as Bird’s parents educate him in the origins of stories, the meaning of words and the magic of fairy tales – until the Crisis.

            The Crisis is a world-wide economic depression which results in massive unemployment, huge, countrywide protests and a gradual belief that China, who seemed to get off lightly compared to the rest of the world, is behind the terrible reversal of U.S. fortunes.  Eventually, the government decides on a solution:  PACT.  ‘Protecting America’s Culture and Traditions.’  Which covers a multitude of behaviours that would have been unthinkable before the Crisis:  the censoring of what is taught to children in schools;  the banning of books considered inflammatory and ‘Un-American’ in libraries;  and worst of all, the removal of children from their parents, sent who-knows-where because the parents were no longer considered fit to nurture them as good little Americans.

            Such a fate is narrowly avoided for Bird when his mother decides to flee before she is betrayed by a neighbour or ‘friend’ (very common these days), and her loving husband is forced to denounce her to anyone who will listen so that the authorities will not remove Bird from his custody.  Because of his wife’s disgrace he has been hugely demoted and now earns a pittance shelving books in the university library, but he doesn’t care, as long as he and Bird are still together, even though Bird’s oriental eyes mean he must wear sunglasses to avoid the bullies.

            But Ethan has reckoned without Bird’s natural curiosity, especially when he receives a mysterious communication by mail – a picture of cats, seemingly innocuous to the Post Office censors, but to Bird, a message from his mother after three years of silence.  She is in New York.  No matter what the danger, he must travel there to see her.  To find out why she left him, for his father has never said.  To find out why she left him behind.

            Ms Ng’s prose is like a shower of gold coins:  in words of great beauty she writes of a terrible, dystopian society that good, rational people despair of ever repairing, especially (as she has already said) what has occurred in the novel has already happened in real life.  Every thinking person should read this book.  SIX STARS.

              

                 

 

Playing Under the Piano, by Hugh Bonneville.       Non-fiction.

 

            The only people who haven’t heard of the smash-hit TV series (with two full-length movies also snaring huge box-office returns) ‘Downton Abbey’, must be a lost tribe of the Amazon.  Seldom has a between-the-wars tale of British Aristocracy, complete with love between the classes, scandal, heartache and tragedy been so successfully brought to the screen, and universally loved by millions – of all classes.  And apart from being the wonderful scripts of Julian Fellowes, it fell to the perfectly-cast actors to cement the reality of their screen lives indelibly with viewers in every episode:  who hasn’t heaved a sigh of frustration at the thought of having to wait a whole week to find out the fate of Lady Mary or Lady Edith, or their darling little sister, who dies in childbirth, the child being the daughter of the chauffeur!

            And now we are fortunate to have a charming memoir written by Hugh Bonneville, who plays the aristocratic father of those three gels and, true to form, explains that no-one, least of all the cast, could predict the runaway popularity of the show but, needless to say, everyone was predictably delighted to have long-term work, for regardless of reputation, an actor’s life will never be 9-to-5, every week until they retire.

            Mr Bonneville is a very funny man.  And a wonderful writer, especially as he recounts his early years as a trainee Shakespearean  actor, along with such other hopefuls as Ralph Fiennes, receiving an excellent grounding in the classic plays of British literature at elite theatres - after attending Cambridge University with a half-hearted wish to study law, or Religion with a view to becoming a minister.  Yes, truly!  Our hero was a man without a clear mission until he caught the acting bug, and lucky for us that he did, for he has appeared in some memorable plays and films, all of which are entertainingly covered here, including ‘Notting Hill’ and the charming Paddington Bear films.  He shares wonderful memories of the luminaries he has worked with (and they are Legion), with never an unkind word from or for anybody, yet still imparting cosy, gossipy, charming little anecdotes that humanise such greats as Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, both of whom left him ‘awestruck’. 

            He explains the ‘mechanics’ of acting that allow the actor through his expertise –sleight-of-hand? – to lull the audience into thinking that every move and direction is natural, unforced on stage or before the cameras:  acting is indeed a precise and suble art, and Hugh Bonneville, once so unknown that ‘he couldn’t get a table at MacDonalds’ is now a literary luminary, as well as an acting one.  Big Macs, anyone?  SIX STARS.         

 

Paper Cage, by Tom Baragwanath.

            Tom Baragwanath’s debut novel is notable for several things:  it is the recipient of the Michael Gifkins prize;  it’s a fast-paced, satisfying thriller that follows all the good crime-story rules – non-stop action, credible characters, and more twists and turns than a pretzel as we move towards WhoDunnit;  and it’s set primarily in the Wairarapa town of Masterton, on the East coast of New Zealand’s North Island – which is bound to give all Kiwi readers a very satisfying buzz of recognition.

            Lorraine Henry narrates the story;  she is a pakeha (European) woman whose life has been blighted by much tragedy.  She has lost almost everyone she holds dear through a series of tragic accidents – except for her beloved niece Sheena, daughter of her late sister, and the apple of her eye, Bradley, Sheena’s little son to Keith, the head of a Mongrel-Mob gang chapter in the town.  Lorraine always worries about Sheena’s association with Keith, for he runs the local Meth business and apart from the huge illegality of his ‘business’, Lorraine fears for Sheena’s will-power around all that poison, not to mention Bradley’s exposure to it and, because of Lorraine’s long-time job as a file clerk at the local police station, the hostility she always faces from Keith whenever she visits.  Which is often;  they don’t live far away.  And she loves them – they are her reason for getting up in the morning.

            And one can never be too vigilant at the moment because Precious Kingi, a young Maori girl has vanished from her home in the nearby town of Featherston;  she comes from a deprived background and her dad is also mixed up in the Meth business – some would say ‘Well, what would you expect?’ but Lorraine grieves for her parents, whom she knows:  how can they bear it?  And the cops don’t seem to be doing anything much about it – until a second Maori child disappears, then a Wellington detective finally turns up from the Big Smoke, one who specialises in the disappearance of children – and wondrously, he thinks that Lorraine’s experience and photographic memory of the criminal files in the basement might be more useful than the Mr Plod tactics of the Police Chief.  Especially when Lorraine’s worst nightmares are realised and Bradley goes missing.

            As if the suspense isn’t wound tight enough, Tom Baragwanath ratchets up the pace some more with two murders and a villain who thinks he is acting with the best of intentions. Most intriguingly, the lines between good and evil become somewhat blurred.  There are no winners in this raw, clever story.  FIVE STARS.