Book Review: The Family Chao

★★★★

This is a murder mystery telling the story of The Family Chao. They are tied together through shared trauma. There are the children (3 sons) who all struggle to accommodate their responsibility towards their father, while depending on, and loving, their mother. There is a boisterous, crass, stubborn father who may have physically, emotionally, and sexually abused their mother. And there is the quiet, steadfast, strong mother who has held the family together for decades and finally makes a stand for her own sanity, forsaking all material wealth and going in for spirituality. There are the secondary characters: the friends who the children grew up with, the parents of those friends, and the employees of the restaurant that the Chao family owns.

Dad (Leo) Chao isn't found dead until page 146 out of 296 pages. That is a lot of time spent developing atmosphere and tension between characters.

The mystery you see, is not the mystery of the story. There is a death, and there is mystery around the death, but there is another mystery woven into the fabric of the story that sneaks up on the reader unexpectedly, prowling in the background until it suddenly pounces into the forefront. A mystery of family, and the ties that bind us to them. How, sometimes, no matter how much we search for chosen family, our born family continues to dictate our decisions. 

The story is written in third person, through the shifting perspectives of each of the siblings. Because of this, the reader's understanding of the parents is limited. Isn't this how we always perceive our parents? As though we see through a glass darkly.

Lan Samantha Chang addresses issues around Asian American stereotypes, characterizations of the Asian diaspora as a "bad minority" and having "animalistic tendencies". She doesn't pontificate about these stereotypes, or casual anti-Asian sentiment. Through Chang's character depictions, instances of bullying and prejudice are shared matter-of-factly. 

Chang describes the immigrant experience: the importance of finding community and connection through shared and common rituals and practices. How immigrants often create their own family. Community is a strong theme that revisited throughout the book. And how, sometimes, that shared culture can feel like one is trapped in the culture that they are from, "when in reality you were never trapped."

At times, it can be difficult to connect with any of the characters. There are family histories and interactions that are alluded to, but never developed. There is no storm to release the pressure.

Some other reviews I read on GoodReads expressed disappointment in stereotypical characters, and a sometimes brutal storyline. Another review drew connections between The Family Chao and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and that this is a retelling of this classic. I haven't read The Brothers Karamazov, and I am not familiar with Dostoevsky's style. 

The story itself is well written, and if you're the type of reader that doesn't need everything spelled out for you, then this mystery might be just what you're looking for.

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