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Book review: Gay author's new novel engrossing, not graphic

By Qin Zhongwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-16 13:31

If you are curious about the novel Courage only because it would be the first work of Chinese gay fiction you have read, know this - it is not that gay.

You do not need to identify with homosexuals to read gay fiction, but you do need to at least identify with love, a precondition to understanding and accepting the plot of Courage, which may be at odds with stereotypes held by some readers about relationships between men.

There are various ways of interpreting author Xiao Jie's - a sobriquet, his real name is Jay Sun - handling of the subject. But from its cover to its content, the novel depicts a love story similar to many others describing passion's unspoken attachment. It's just that the main characters are young men.

Gao Fei was born into an army family in Beijing and Hao Tong into a poor coal miner in southwestern China. The two, with completely different personalities, become best friends while studying at university in Beijing, but their story only begins to unfold after they move to the US, first Gao followed by Hao.

The plot twists and turns as they confront different aspects of their identities and adjust to life in America. Hao has an affair with uncle Lin, a middle-aged Chinese restaurant owner, soon after his girlfriend moves to San Francisco.

Its final pages offer no happy-ever-after, but it is not a bleak tragedy. The novel ends as Hao runs off with uncle Lin while Gao overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving readers to wonder whether the two will be together in the future. Their relationship is explored as an unusually intimate friendship, a bit one-sided, with Gao seemingly more interested in Hao.

The author does a good job in presenting Gao, who loves Hao unconditionally. Yet Hao is a character that frustrated me, as I found his personality and behavior unconvincing.

The depiction of his past in China and subsequent behavior in the US seem far-fetched, as there was nothing presented about his former life in China that would hint at why he would immediately begin exploring his attraction to men upon arrival in the US.

I can see the author is trying to make the homosexual context as normal and natural as he can. In his story the mutual attraction between men is like any romantic love.

Author Xiao Jie does not deny that part of the story was borrowed from his own experience. Born and raised in Beijing, he went to Tsinghua University in 1992, and then went overseas in 1995, finally settling in Silicon Valley after graduating with a master's degree from Stanford University.

His first novel, A Diary Across the Ocean, was published in 2003 and widely seen as the first locally published gay novel in China. Courage is his second. The book, now only in Chinese, is available in online bookstores.