Lost Men
A Novel
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A novel of rare grace and power, Lost Men is the story of a father and a son each confronting his past. Westen Chan was just eight years old when his Caucasian mother died and his father, Xin, sent him away to be raised by her relatives.
Twenty years later, after a lifetime of estrangement, Westen receives an invitation from his father to travel with him to China—a prom-ise Xin once made when Westen was a child. So it is that two strangers—a father and a son—travel halfway around the world to a land that one of them knows intimately and the other has never seen. As they tour the country, the two men reveal themselves slowly and awkwardly: Westen’s history of failed relationships and his conflicted cultural identity; Xin’s regret at leaving his son and the terrible secret he’s kept too long. And in the end, their relationship may just hinge on the contents of a sealed letter written by Westen’s mother before her death—one that threatens to answer the lifelong question neither of them has dared to ask.
Powerful, moving, and beautiful, Lost Men is a stunning literary novel that explores cultural and ethnic identity, the meaning of family, the exigencies of fate, and the lengths to which we will go to reconnect with those we fear we have lost. Brian Leung reveals both the intimate hearts of his characters and the telling details of place with equal and substantial grace.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leung gingerly reacquaints an estranged father and son who travel through China in this sagacious and lyrical debut novel. When Westen Chan's American mother died, his Chinese father, Xin, left him with his Caucasian great-aunt and uncle in rural Washington State, promising one day to return and take his son on a journey to Xin's village in China. More than 20 years have passed when Xin's invitation finally arrives. Westen is 32, but in many ways still childlike: insecure, resentful and stubborn. A virgin, he at least partially blames his romantic difficulties, with both men and women, on being abandoned by his father. Xin, now elderly, ill and trying to cope with his own guilt, is unsure if he can reconnect with his son. The two haltingly reintroduce and explain themselves, and while on the trip, Xin confides in Westen about the hardship he left behind in his village and shares ancient traditions. The stories of the two men, told in an alternating first person, become increasingly gripping: "Be careful about judging people without knowing all their history," says Xin, who also bears an unopened letter from Westen's mother to her son. Throughout, Leung handles the complex father-son relationship with care, and does a marvelous job negotiating the two men's fraught cultural and emotional legacies.
