Bone

by Fae Myenne Ng

Reviewed by Martin Kich

Bone [New York: Hyperion, 1993] is the first published novel by Fae Myenne Ng, who has achieved some recognition as a writer of short stories. The novel does have elements that one might expect in both a first novel and in a novel by a young Chinese-American woman. It is a maturation story with a considerable degree of immediacy in its detailing and voice--such immediacy, in fact, that the novel seems clearly autobiographical, even if the characters' specific mix of circumstances has been contrived. In addition, there is great emphasis on the complexities in the protagonist Leila's often strained relationships with her mother and her sisters and, almost by extension, in her relationships with her step-father and her new husband. All of these relationships are profoundly affected and ultimately defined by the crisis of her sister Ona's sudden suicide. Notably, this family crisis is played out in largely private, domestic scenes, so that the broader milieu of San Francisco's Chinatown is always subordinated to the family's situation, reflected in the microcosm of their existence. Lastly, because Leila and her sisters are first-generation Americans, the process of their self-definition inevitably involves considerations of what it means to be both Chinese and American. They struggle with the characteristic dilemma of the children of immigrants, finding a resolution to the conflict between the demands of heritage and those of assimilation.

Despite these rather predictable elements, Bone is a striking achievement. Ng shows all of her characters' limitations and eccentricities and yet reveals the details so gradually and naturally that even a "character" such as her step-father Leon (whose life is an almost incredible record of hopeful schemes and predictable failures, and whose main preoccupation is the invention of whimsical household gadgets out of junk) is memorably individualized. Interestingly, the major characters initially seem stereotypical, then compellingly idiosyncratic, and finally profoundly representative. Along these same lines, Ng demonstrates considerable subtlety in differentiating the attitudes and expectations of the generations, so that their conflicts are conveyed with an often painful intimacy, and not merely painted in broad, familiar strokes. For instance, she deftly exhibits the paradox that the generation of immigrants often saw the American Dream in their children because their margin for survival in this country was not much of an improvement over their bleak possibilities in the old country.

Still, Ng's greatest success in this novel may lie in her choice of narrative structure. Very early in the novel, we learn of Ona's suicide and of its great effect on the family. We expect, then, that the novel will work through the past to reveal the reasons for the suicide and to implicate someone or something as the primary provocation. More precisely, we might expect one of two patterns of development: from a sketch of the crisis back to the beginnings of the story and building back to the crisis, or through the crisis in deliberate stages with extended flashbacks to fill in the background in equal portions. In either case, the emphasis typically would be on increasingly "meaningful" revelations of the sort associated with melodrama--the dark secrets, the fateful choices, the inexplicably bound series of events, the inevitable ironies of circumstance. Ng, however, scrupulously avoids melodrama, even though her characters are prone to be melodramatic. She links the past and present by looping through the events of each, exposing a little more of each at each turn, in such a way that we receive, not new revelations, but a gradually fuller appreciation of what we have already learned. Instead of withholding information to achieve the greatest dramatic effect, Ng chooses to suggest that only so much can be said at once--that a story needs its own space and pace. As a result, this novel rewards rereading because it is truly a whole piece: at the end, we understand, as much as anyone can, what led up to and followed Ona's suicide, and that knowledge allows, the reader as well as Leila, to accept the impossibility of understanding the act itself.

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