Shanghailanders - Juli Min - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Juli Min

GENRE: Literary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: May 7, 2024

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction structured in reverse, going from 2040 to 2014. Character-driven all the way. The structure is what will make or break your experience. I loved it, despite the few gaps in the jigsaw. A marvellous debut. And guess what, I am an outlier… on the positive side – Yippee! 🥳

Plot Preview:

2040. After dropping off his family at the airport, real estate businessman and Shanghai local Leo Yang is in the train back to the city. On the journey, he mulls over why his wife insisted on accompanying his two elder daughters to Boston, though they are grown up enough to travel independently. Leo’s family comprises his wife Eko, an artistic Japanese-French woman who is tired of Shanghai, and his three daughters, Yumi (20, self-obsessed, and has a dark secret), Yoko (18, academically inclined, and has a dark secret), and Yukiko (16, the baby of the family, and has a dark secret.)

As the book traverses down the years, working backwards from 2040 to 2014 a few months/years at a time, we learn more about the family and some key incidents in their lives, through their own narration, or through the eyes of those who work for them. Each section comes from a different time period and a different character.

Just a couple of days back, I read a book that was marketed as a short story collection but turned out to be a composite novel. I didn’t like it as much as I would have, had I known what to expect. Now here’s a composite novel tagged accurately as a literary fiction. What a difference the right label makes to our experience! I went in prepared for a character-driven storytelling, and got exactly that.

Bookish Yays:

😍 Every section, coming from a specific time period and a distinct character, feels like a proper story, beginning and progressing the way an independent short story would. This book thus reads as a series of vignettes, with the first and the last one coming from Leo, making the book come a full circle.

😍 As the title suggests, the book highlights a variety of “Shanghailanders”. Thus we get the narratives from varied age groups (child to senior citizen), financial status (from wealthy to poor), and even from male and female characters. Most perspectives are in third person, but there are a couple in first or second person. I enjoyed the variety of voices, both in terms of characters as well as writing.

😍 The Yang family is not entirely likeable. Each of them has their positives and negatives and secrets. Their complexities lend depth to the novel. Two of the chapters that come from secondary characters working with the Yangs are the most interesting, both in terms of the characters’ backstory as well as the insights they offer into their employers.

😍 The writing is focussed. While clearly character-oriented, the author creates a tangible feel of the setting, balancing her descriptions without overburdening the story flow.

😍 As with every story focussed on a family, the book highlights various aspects of families that appear normal but are actually dysfunctional. Relationships, secrets, emotions, fights, loyalty, loneliness, scandals, trauma, unaware parents, emotionally damaged children – all are a part of this narrative. I like how the drama, despite so many potentially emotional topics, never goes over the top.

😍 The near-future world beyond our current year feels realistic enough. There are technological improvements over our current world and also hotter temperatures, but it is not a world so unbelievably ultra-modern that it seems implausible.

😍 There is no overarching plot in this story, nor a central conflict or a happy family reunion at the finale. The narrative is focussed on the characters and their backstories, with us already knowing the events of the “present time” of 2040, and then discovering what could have led to that stage. This might not work for some readers, but I liked it.

😍 The pace is on the slower side, as is typical of literary fiction, but it never slackens. I was invested from start to end, thanks to the intricate structuring.

😍 Though the setting is clearly Chinese, the story feels universal thanks to the characters and the human flaws and frailties so clearly visible in them. That said, the story still gives us enough of a glimpse of Shanghai and its people. I am not sure if this counts as an OwnVoices work, because the author is a Korean-American living in Shanghai. But at least by location and tone, it appears authentic. (Only a Shanghainese would be able to confirm this.)

Bookish Mixed Bags:

😐 The backward structure is the USP of this novel, but it works both for and against the narrative. While it offers an innovativeness to the experience, it also makes the reader’s task a tad difficult. We need to keep track of the reverse aging of the characters, which gets a bit confusing at times. Also, backwards storytelling is used when there is a big reveal in the latest timeframe and then we discover what led to it. But there is no single big reveal here. Instead, we get loads of mini reveals about the characters, which is good in its own way but doesn’t offer a holistic picture of their life.

😐 As each section comes from a different character and from a different year, we see only their isolated perspective on the events of that time. So all the pieces of the jigsaw aren't available to us. This won’t satisfy readers who need completed arcs. The “What happened next?” stays unanswered as the “next” perspective is from a different character. Mind you, this didn’t affect my reading experience. I was still fascinated. Just that when I reflected back on a certain character, I wished I knew what happened to them afterwards.

Bookish If Onlys:

😕 Minor complaint: Keeping track of Yumi and Yoko was very confusing for me. (Not being racist here. I feel equally confused about a Jenn and a Jill or a Rajiv and a Ravi being in the same book. Heck, I even confuse my daughters’ names, both of which begin with ‘An----.') Thankfully, Yukiko was referred to as ‘Kiko’, otherwise my confusion would have been greater. I wish the two older girls had names beginning with distinct letters.

All in all, despite a few stumbling blocks, I really enjoyed this book. While it has a strong literary flavour, I feel it will work for those readers who enjoy not just character-oriented narratives but also short story collections. For a debut work, this novel is quite ambitious, so kudos to the author for presenting us with this unusual dysfunctional family storyline without dumping unnecessary themes into the plot.

Definitely recommended, but not to all. If you like to read an easy-going story with likeable characters, a proper plot, settled character arcs, and a satisfying ending, this book isn’t for you.

My thanks to Spiegel & Grau for providing the DRC of “Shanghailanders” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.