Jing-nan and Julia first met in grade school and fell in love and planned out their lives together. They would go to college in the USA and then get married and raise their children and live lives of success and prosperity. At least that was the plan.
But Jing-nan's father died unexpectedly and a large family debt was passed on to Jing-nan requiring him to return home to Taiwan and run his family's food stand in the night market in Taipei.
Jing-nan was ashamed of his failure to graduate college and having take over the food shop. So he broke off contact with Julia. Last he heard, she had dropped out of college and had also returned to Taipei. Then he found out Julia had been working in a betel nut shop where the shop girls dressed provocatively to lure in their mostly male customers. And that she had been murdered, shot dead. He is stricken with grief and can't help but wonder how such a lovely, smart girl had ended up like that.
He begins a sort of half-hearted investigation that reveals the local gangs might have been involved. Gangs are rampant there (apparently) and somehow Julia came to grief because of her knowledge of their activities. Jing-nan is on the right track, as he is beaten up and threatened by local gangsters. But the threats don't stop him and his questions don't only lead to Julia's killers but to understanding his own feelings and failings too.
This was an interesting and sad story. The loss of a bright young woman like Julia was just so tragic. As was Jing-nan's acceptance of the burden of his family's debt, forced into spending his life paying it off. But the best thing about the story was looking at a culture that shares much with ours but is also quite different, with a very long and complicated history. I liked reading about Jing-nan, his friends and coworkers and I enjoyed the story very much.
Kirkus has a review of the novel here: Kirkus Reviews.
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