KOCHI: Fiona and Jane love to take life as it comes — flaws and all. They once stole from their parish church that spews homophobic nonsense, when they were around 16. They went out for their first drink to a hall-in-the-wall Korean bar in town with Won, a loyal friend from school. The trio shared many drunken nights in California, driving around munching on delights like taquitos and king taco carne asada fries. When they grew up, they drifted apart a little. But they circle back into each other’s orbits from time and agian, picking up where they left off. In their late 30’s, they become each other’s family even closer than they were with their real kin. They find peace and ease, after many years of poor life decisions.
Jane Chen Ho’s debut fiction reads like a short story collection, tales of the tender friendship between Fiona and Jane, two Taiwanese Americans. Each alternate chapter is written from their perspective. The first one, The Night Market, is narrated from Jane’s point of view. She is on a trip to Taiwan to visit her father who moved to his hometown from California. He was supposed to be gone only for a year, but he didn’t show up for two and a half years. Jane fears an imminent break up of her family.
On the last day she spent with her dad in Taiwan, surrounded by the fragrance of grilled meat and red bean pies, she tastes oyster vermicelli with her father. That is when he introduced her to an old friend, who is now his boyfriend. How Jane managed this information, the following guilt and confusion dictate the rest of her life. The chapter centres around Jane and her family — her father’s depression, his battle with his sexuality, family secrets, her mother’s fervent religious beliefs, and her first kiss with Fiona (just a practice!).
In the second chapter, The Inheritance, Fiona takes the centre stage but in a third-person narrative. Fiona has never met her father. And as she graduated from college, she received an inheritance from her grandfather along with answers to many questions.
The timelines jump back and forth, memories resurface, perspectives change, but the narrative never grates on the reader’s mind. Amid frustration, sorrow and occasional positive twists, Jane and Fiona grow closer as life goes on. The Taiwanese culture, their lives as Asian immigrants in the US, their many relationships, both failed and flourishing, their escapades with love and judgement — Ho allows her characters to be wonderfully ordinary.