キャミー・タング著「戌年」連載小説 プロのドッグトレーナーであるマリ・ムトウは、厄年を迎えている。 犬小屋と訓練所の改築をしながら、いつも不服そうにしている家族と同居することになった。母と姉に言わせれば、犬の毛とよだれかけにまみれる仕事は、家族にとって恥ずべきものだという。彼女は元カレを説得し、数ヶ月間犬を預かってもらうことにした。しかし、彼の兄は、数週間前に彼女が誤って車に追突した、怒り狂ったセキュリティ専門家であることが判明する。 アシュウィン・ケイトウは十分な問題を抱えている。叔母が玄関先に現れ、同居を希望している。彼は彼女にすべてを借りているので、断ることができません。母親が家を出て行った後、ネルおばさんはアシュウィンと弟を引き取り、愛のあるキリスト教の家庭で育てた。しかも、弟のダスティもアパートを追い出され、居場所を求めている。しかし、彼は犬を飼っている。そして、その犬の飼い主は誰だと思いますか？ しかし、旧友でオアフ島のノースショアでデイスパを経営する私立探偵のエディサ・ゲレロから依頼を受ける。マリの施設で奇妙な破壊行為があり、3年前に失踪したエディサの妹の財布を発見する。エディサはマリが危険な目に遭っているのではと心配する。警備の専門家であるアシュウィンがすでにマリを知っていることを知ったエディサは、忙しい若い女性を密かに監視することを彼に依頼する。 アシュウィンは、活発でのんびりとしたドッグトレーナーに不本意ながら惹かれていく。彼女は、幸せそうな母親を思い出させる。その母親の裏切りによって、彼は人と距離を置くようになったのだ。マリは、アシュウィンの冷たい外見を見抜き、彼が家族に忠実な男であることを認める。彼は、彼女のキャリア選択を批判するだけの母親や姉とは違う。 マリのバラバラな家庭とアシュウィンのバラバラな家庭の中で、過去を隠そうとする人たちから、彼らの周りに危険が迫ってくるようになる。彼らは、影で動く秘密に光を当てることができるのか？ 過去に発表されたパートへのリンクはこちら。 *** 第8章 - 恐ろしくも真っ白な不動産書類 『みんな仲良くできないのかな？』 マリは無用に力を込めて箱に本を投げ入れた。最近、なぜ彼女は人生の中で全員と言い争いをしているのだろう？もしかすると、これは本当に悪いアイデア
Captain’s Log, Supplemental
Blog book giveaway:
To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there.
Along Came Jones by Linda Windsor
Two books for moms by Jenn Doucette
Chick lit and chow mein
I just had to mention this article I read today: Bridget Jung’s Diary.
Jeff Yang is a columnist for SFGate.com, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. His column “Asian Pop” is always interesting to me since I like keeping in touch with Asian American media and culture.
Today he happened to write about Asian American chick lit authors. There are two books by Asian authors releasing this week—one author duo I knew about, the other author I didn’t.
China Dolls by Michelle Yu and Blossom Kan is most definitely Asian chick lit. However, Mia King deliberately omits any mention of ethnicity for her character in Good Things. The article explains why.
It was an interesting perspective for me. I grew up in Hawaii, where Asians are the majority, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a large Asian population. Most of the people I know are Asian—both friends and coworkers when I was doing biology research.
I don’t think I could write about a non-Asian character even if I tried. I’d probably get hate mail from readers complaining that my Irish character was an affront to every Irish American who ever lived. Or I’d get Italian Americans putting out a hit on me.
And then, of course, my Japanese American mother would complain that I didn’t write about Asians since I was one. She’d then lament the time and effort that she, as an English teacher, had wasted to introduce me to all the Asian American literature that Hawaii and the United States could supply.
Ironically, I hated all that stuff when I was growing up, but these days I’m reading tons of Asian American studies books to give me different perspectives for my single, Asian American heroines.
Anyway, feel free to read the article and let me know what you think. I enjoyed it a lot.
Blog book giveaway:
To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there.
Along Came Jones by Linda Windsor
Two books for moms by Jenn Doucette
Chick lit and chow mein
I just had to mention this article I read today: Bridget Jung’s Diary.
Jeff Yang is a columnist for SFGate.com, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. His column “Asian Pop” is always interesting to me since I like keeping in touch with Asian American media and culture.
Today he happened to write about Asian American chick lit authors. There are two books by Asian authors releasing this week—one author duo I knew about, the other author I didn’t.
China Dolls by Michelle Yu and Blossom Kan is most definitely Asian chick lit. However, Mia King deliberately omits any mention of ethnicity for her character in Good Things. The article explains why.
It was an interesting perspective for me. I grew up in Hawaii, where Asians are the majority, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a large Asian population. Most of the people I know are Asian—both friends and coworkers when I was doing biology research.
I don’t think I could write about a non-Asian character even if I tried. I’d probably get hate mail from readers complaining that my Irish character was an affront to every Irish American who ever lived. Or I’d get Italian Americans putting out a hit on me.
And then, of course, my Japanese American mother would complain that I didn’t write about Asians since I was one. She’d then lament the time and effort that she, as an English teacher, had wasted to introduce me to all the Asian American literature that Hawaii and the United States could supply.
Ironically, I hated all that stuff when I was growing up, but these days I’m reading tons of Asian American studies books to give me different perspectives for my single, Asian American heroines.
Anyway, feel free to read the article and let me know what you think. I enjoyed it a lot.
Comments
It's a great time to be an "ethnic" writer (for a lack of a better word, it's not like white people are void of ethnicity, you know? That term is really loaded). I do find it refreshing to see more stories being published my people of all kinds of ethnicities. I'm the kind of person who likes to learn about different cultures and stories are a good way to learn stuff that non-fiction books can't "teach".
As a multi-ethnic lady, I make a real effort to include protagonists other characters various with various backgrounds and ethnicities. As a yougn girl I would have liked to read more stories where the main character "looked like me". But with that said, I don't have every page of my story shouting "hey--I'm this or that!" or anything annoying. Like in the current story I'm writing my protagonist has a black mother and an Asian-American father. I do describe how she looks and include some relevant tidbits about some family traditions that are ethnic in nature. But my main purpose is to tell a story about the human heart, whatever color its packaged in.
Since I grew up around blacks, Chaldean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans and Filipino-Americans, of course I'll add characters of those ethnicites. My readers can expect to see some backlava and rice balls on my character's dinner plate.
I really like what they said about Chick Lit not dying, just evolving. I think there are a lot of us out here who are excited to see the genre opening up to whole different avenues--and all the things thoose might entail.
It gives me hope for actually getting my current WIP published someday. :)
I loved the article and your comments about how your ethnicity and life experiences color your writing.
I started thinking more about it and ended up with a blog post on the topic. So, thanks for that too. :-)