READER REVIEWS

Robert Galbraith writes:

THIS UNUSUAL NOVEL HAS Fang Yan, narrator and central character, as a hopelessly amnesiac grifter in the New China of capitalistic expansion under communist control. This amnesia, a clear reference to the nation's leaders' cultural and political amnesia, is the driving force in a plot which has a belated investigation into the apparent death ten years earlier of Gao Yang, Fang's comrade at arms in Vietnam and wealthy drinking buddy for about a month after they were demobilised together, along with a group of others all of whom hung out together. Fang becomes the prime suspect in the killing and is questioned by police, which provokes him to visit the other members of the gang to sort out alibis. He has no memory of the killing, it seems, but everyone else is sure he did it. But no! Gao Yang is still alive and duly turns up to help piece events together. The novel moves towards some kind of conclusion in which memory becomes an invented thing, or dream. Wang makes Fang unreliable to the point of surrealism. The characters come over well and despite being less than endearing, Fang is somehow sympathetic. Definitely worth the price of admission.