In 'The Family Chao' by Lan Samantha Chang, for years, the Chao family runs the best restaurant in Lake Haven, Wisconsin. Dagou aka William Chao often wishes that his dad were dead. When tyrannical patriarch Big Chao is found frozen to death in the family's meat freezer, the community turns its attention to the three Chao sons. Dagou who is the eldest son, is a talented chef, presupposed heir to the business but his dad , Leo Chao is dogmatic and constantly berating him. He hopes to be made a partner in Fine Chao restaurant that is now solely run by his dad. His mother, Winnie, Leo's long suffering wife has moved to the Spiritual House, a Buddhist monastery located in a defunct school gymnasium. After years of emotional abuse and hard work, she flees. She no longer cares about her possessions. She wants to leave everything to the spiritual house.
It is nearly Christmas, Dagou is planning a lavish Christmas party for the restaurant regular customers and the community in Haven.
Ming, their middle child has left Haven, is now a successful trader in Manhattan. Years ago, he swore to everyone that he would never to return to Haven for Christmas.'He would never again deplane into a white tarmac of nothingness, never again slog knee-deep without boots across the airport rental lot under the frigid sky. Never again lay eyes upon the childhood street in winter, with its modest houses feebly outlined in strings of coloured lights. He told everyone he would rather spend the holiday in New York, alone in his apartment, than return to this godforsaken heartland of deprivation.'
James, their youngest son, is a first- year college student. At Union Station, he's stopped by an elderly Chinese man asking him which train to take. 'James has lost his Mandarin, forgotten the language as a toddler with two older brothers teaching, loving, and tormenting him exclusively in English. Only from time to time, when he's not expecting it, will a spoken phrase of Mandarin filter to this innermost chamber of his ear and steal into his consciousness.' The old man is in his seventies, close to his father's age. Together they manage to figure out where the man wants to go. When James begins to lead him to the train, he falls down a set of stairs and dies. As the EMTs neglect to take with them the old man's blue carpetbag, James decides to take it with him.The man's tragic death, and his bag picked up by James, become a matter that is relevant to the development of the story .
At Winnie's request, all the three sons will be gathering for a meal at the Buddhist temple. Dagou prepares the vegetarian luncheon to be attended by his mother,brothers, the nuns, and the abbess, Gu Ling Zhu Chi. He hopes that in the presence of these attendees, he'll be able to convince Leo to make him a partner of Fine Chao. But Leo is not a man to be shamed into giving anything away.
At the luncheon, sitting amongst the nuns and the vegetarian meal they've prepared, Leo asks, '"Why no meat? Why 'cessation from desire?"Leo continues, heaping pea greens on his plate.
"I love my desires. They belong to me, and so I listen to them, I believe them, and if I were a smart guy, like Fang here"-he shoots a glance at Fang, who blinks behind his glasses ..." I would take notes. I want them to flourish and multiply. So, if you think the point of life is cessation from desire, then you and I are mortally opposed......"'
Dagou is angry at his father and he also wants to impress his new girlfriend, Brenda, who claims that she wishes to marry for money.He thus tries to prove to her that he has money by cooking the most extravagant and decadent Christmas dinner he can imagine. His ex-fiancée, Katherine, who was adopted by white parents from an orphanage in China, remains close to the Chaos. Her continuous presence and attachment to the Chaos infuriates Ming who somehow feels conflicted when he finds Catherine attractive since he has also sworn off Asian women.
Dagou is elated that the Christmas dinner party at Fine Chao is a success and Brenda is suitably impressed. But his happiness is short lived when his father is found dead in the restaurant freezer. He becomes the primary suspect and together with the help of his brothers and the two women who love him, Leo's attorney friend,Jerry Stern tries to prove that Dagou is innocent. He may have expressed explicitly his intention to kill his dad in the way he is now found dead, he has not killed his father. Someone else has wilfully removed the key from the meat freezer that has long proven to be unsafe but Leo has refused to upgrade.
The Chao brothers are caught between their family melodrama and how the community in mid Western America view them. They find themselves having issues identifying where they belong: they are born non-white American, and they are not Chinese having never lived in the place their parents migrated from, now they have to reckon with the legacy and turbulent past of their parents for their future survival.
James is unlike his older brothers. He tells his father that he is not ambitious and he just wants an ordinary life. Here is a description of James.
'He remembers telling his father, in what now feels like another life, of his desire to be small, to be a part of something larger than himself. Throughout the trial, but especially today, as the moment for him to testify draws near, he has felt like a tiny creature approaching the enormous machine of justice, with its wheels juddering, ready to crush his life as well as those of his brothers.'
'Isn't every family a walled fortress of stories unknown even to its neighbours?'
-The Family Chao, Lan Samantha Chang
The Family Chao is a plot driven story and Chang's characters are well portrayed. The Family Chao' a debut by Lan Samantha Chang is an engaging read. While the novel is about siblings and familial love, it contains a murder mystery and a courtroom drama. I understand from reading several reviews of the novel that Chang has structured her novel following some of the outlines of The Brothers Karamazov , the Russian classic by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
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