The history of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century is--at best--an acknowledged fact of hardship and mistreatment. It happened, but the individual names and stories of the immigrants who came are not well-documented and likely lost. They exist as anonymous, gaunt faces in old, faded photographs. It may be too early to call it a trend, but Tom Lin's "The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu" is the second book I've read in the last two years (C. Pam Zhang's "How Much of These Hills is Gold" being the other) that seeks to establish a new western mythology centered on the Chinese experience, retroactively granting name and stories to these early immigrants and claiming a place in the great American story. It's a refreshing and needed twist to the western story that I hope grows and develops further to encompass other groups whose stories have been untold.
Lin's cinematic novel is a taut and brutal story of vengeance, a trope familiar from countless movies and books. Ming Tsu is a deadly assassin, an orphan who was raised and trained by a white man to be a killer, who we join as his quest for revenge is already in progress. Before the novel even starts he has already killed one of the men on his kill list and on his way to find the second. Though we know the names of those who had done him wrong, we don't really know much about his targets nor do we know really anything about Ming himself. He's the stereotypical taciturn, mysterious sharpshooter apart from the fact that he's Chinese. Lin withholds a lot from the reader, which is probably by design, as he expects us to be familiar with western tropes and formulas, but I think he withholds too much. We just take for granted that his quest is righteous and his victims deserve all that they get. That asks a lot. Ming Tsu is an anti-hero by design, but based on the bits of backstory we glean, I'm not so sure he's a decent man. We don't know anything about his beloved Ada, the wife who was taken away from him, and he is now seeking to reunite with. Apart from a brief dream about her, we don't know what kind of woman she is and whether she even wants to be with Ming. Lin expects too much of the reader to completely accept at face value that Ming is justified in his quest and that he is deserving of the help and luck he gets throughout the story.
What's also interesting in the novel is Lin's use of magic realism. For much of the novel, Ming joins up with an old Chinese man called simply "the Prophet" who can tell when a person will die but also has no memory. He doesn't remember, for example, meeting Ming before. The Prophet is a fascinating, enigmatic character who embodies and speaks of the book's theme of memory and history as a function not of the mind but of the physical body. To borrow the title of a popular current book, the body keeps the score.
For most of the book Ming and the Prophet join in with a traveling sideshow, ostensibly as their bodyguard to get them to Reno. The sideshow is comprised of several characters who all have literal gifts. They don't do illusions. Hazel, a woman Ming develops a relationship with, can set herself on fire, Hunter, a young deaf boy and an orphan like Ming, can speak into people's minds. There is also a tattooed Pacific Islander who can make himself look like the person he is staring at. Even the stagehands have talents. A Navajo man has the convenient ability to make people forget, which saves Ming a couple of times. The book is at its best here as it provides an opportunity to see Ming interact with other people and learn more about him. It gives the book palpable purpose which is missing from Ming's central goal. However, when Ming's time with the troupe ends, it just ends. Ming doesn't seem changed by the relationships he had with the troupe and these vividly drawn characters just go away as if they were merely used for color. It's a jarring transition. Through the end of the novel Ming is alone and the novel sags until the climactic face-off, which is as excitingly depicted as it is preposterous.
My biggest problem with Lin's novel is that Ming is a cipher throughout. Yes, we learn a little about him, but he moves through the story and landscape as a single-minded automaton who is seemingly invincible. The final shootout has him facing off against ten men and he emerges unharmed. He's the Terminator with less emotional development. It's not clear to me if Lin intends for us to empathize at all with Ming or if he is merely a vessel for Lin in an exercise to emulate Cormac McCarthy's view of humanity.
What is strong and ultimately saves "The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu" is the crisp and evocative writing of Lin. He has talent to spare. There are some beautiful passages throughout describing the western landscape and Lin carries a consistent voice throughout. Early on I used "cinematic" to describe the book because Lin truly creates a clear image in the reader's mind of the world and people we are encountering. And I feel that a film of the novel would perhaps improve on the flaws I feel the novel has as reading about a stoic character is different than watching a very good actor embody stoicism. Visual images also are economical in filling in back story than what Lin does here. I also admired and was haunted by Lin's discourse on history and memory. Even if history isn't written down and remembered, it still persists in our bodies and in the physical landscape.
After finishing the novel I was surprised to find out that Tom Lin is only 24 years old. The novel reads like it was written by an older individual. Clearly Lin has talent to spare and I can't wait to read what he does next. "The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu" is an imperfect story, but what is apparent is the skill and talent behind it.
