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Book Reviewed by:Jing-nan is shocked to the core when he learns his ex-girlfriend from high school has been murdered. But the facts don't add up...
August is Ghost Month in Taiwan - a time to commemorate the dead: burn incense, visit shrines, honor ancestors, and avoid unlucky situations, large purchases, and bodies of water. Jing-nan, a young man who runs a food stand in a bustling Taipei night market, doesn't consider himself superstitious, but this August is going to haunt him no matter what he does.
He is shocked to the core when he learns his ex-girlfriend from high school has been murdered. She was found scantily clad and shot on the side of a highway where she was selling betel nuts to passing truck drivers. Beyond his harrowing grief for his lost love, Jing-nan is confused by the news. "Betel nut beauties" are usually women in the most desperate of circumstances; the job is almost as taboo as prostitution. But Julia Huang had been the valedictorian of their high school, and the last time Jing-nan spoke to her she was enrolled in NYU's honor program, far away in New York.
The facts don't add up. Julia's parents don't think so, either, and the police seem to have closed the case without asking any questions. The Huangs beg Jing-nan to do some investigating on his own - reconnect with old classmates, see if he can learn anything about Julia's life that she might have kept from them. Reluctantly, he agrees, for Julia's sake. But nothing can prepare him for what he learns, or how it will change his life.
Native New Yorker Lin, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, has clearly researched every aspect of the culture, customs and beliefs that enrich Ghost Month. He masterfully depicts the prevailing culture of this vibrant international city, and doesn't overlook key elements of social behavior, language and mores. Ghost Month is superbly written and provides plenty of conversational fodder making it an ideal selection for book clubs...continued
Full Review
(843 words)
(Reviewed by Linda Hitchcock).
The pairing of Ghost Month, a mesmerizing mystery set in contemporary Taiwan, with an introduction to the resolutely non-mainstream late seventies, post-punk English band Joy Division might seem unusual. However, Joy Division's gloomy, abjective music forms the weft interlaced throughout Ed Lin's fine novel. Despondent protagonist Jing-nan is obsessive about the band's music, whose lyrics were composed and performed by lead singer Ian Curtis.
Curtis — and his bandmates' — childhood in 1950s Manchester was bleak. Much of the city center had been heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe and had not yet been rebuilt. Buildings were grimy and tumbledown, the ancient sewer system was crumbling, and unemployment was rife with ...
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