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paperback HK$120.00
Inkstone Books
More reviews by Robert H. Abel
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Hotel China by SCC Overton and Edmund Price (eds.) / Hong Kong Writers Circle
Readers who love Hong Kong or at least have a strong interest in it should get hip to a series of books that have been written by and published by the Hong Kong Writers Circle. Each is a compilation of twenty or more stories that center on a shared theme -- Sweat and the City, Hong Kong Whodunnits, Haunting Tales, Love and Lust, and most recently, HOTEL CHINA. All take advantage of Hong Kong's special blend of talents and resources. The rest of the world seems to be carving up literary turf along gender-political and ethnic lines, and so it is refreshing to find the HKWC books alive with a variety of voices and an unabashed sense of fun.
HOTEL CHINA is a bit rough and ready, with some excellent stories and some groaners as well, but it certainly captures the special flavor of a mid-range Hong Kong hotel full of guests with their different agenda and personal histories -- and failings -- and the people who labor to serve them -- or fleece them. If, like me, you enjoy the spirit of good old fashioned pulp fiction brought up to speed in one of the speediest city on the planet, you will enjoy this read.
For my taste, there are three excellent stories in this compilation. In "Hassan's Tale," Edmund Price takes on the persona of a Pakistani man who has ended up in a Hotel China room at the end of his rope. He has "nothing." He wants to marry a woman from California, but she has cut him off because she perceives him to be wimpish in defending her against his mother. Hassan also can't go home again to Lahore because if he does his mother and family will pressure him to marry a local girl. He travels to California but there Sara's parents seem to think he has a bomb in his underwear and he's profiled at the airport and searched in a way that makes him feel "branded." Suffice it to say, Hong Kong saves him.
Another first rate story is "Hacked" by Cate Rochi. Rochi tackles the issue of the cruelty meted out to animals in the Guangzhou and Hong Kong quest for exotic food -- including civets which, as everyone knows, were considered to be the cause of the recent SARS outbreak. The story is graphic and compelling.
Lawrence Gray's story "Private Functions" is one of the few in the collection in which the main character changes as a result of his experiences -- and not for the better. His Nick is pretty much seduced to the dark side by a shady Indian named Sheetal, and the bait is -- what else -- a Hong Kong prostitute. Gray finesses the ending here with some point-of-view shifts, but it remains all the same a finely written, savvy, and somewhat sardonic piece. Love and Lust, by the way, also features a superb story by Gray, "The Pussy Man's Blog", a fast-paced comic romp with a come-uppance that left me howling with delight.
Several stories feature characters who are late thirty-, early forty-somethings who have, through tragedy or divorce, lost their spouses or lovers and are both walking wounded and footloose in a city rich with temptations and treachery. The Red Bar in Hotel China is the backdrop for much of the intrigue. In Peter Gregoire's "Kindness of Strangers", the divorcee, Jenny, gets a sympathetic ear from a happily married American man who is, maybe, too good to be true. Another is "Swan Song", by Mike Bishop, a kind of espionage tale with a cruel twist. Jane Wallace, Sarah Crosby and others contribute stories in this vein.
For fans of the occult, there is "The Angel in Room 1208" by Ian Greenfield, a story which gets us into Stephen King territory; and the gently humorous tale of the afterlife, "Perfectly Placed" by Stephanie Dubois.
No hotel can function without its staff, of course, and accordingly a number of the stories are written from a behind-the-scenes point of view. The eeriest of these is "The Bell Boy" by SCC Overton in which the bell boy in question inhabits a secret stairwell. "Never in a Month of Sundays" by Mio Debnam is a humorous take on what it's like for a young woman to work in room service for a "Super Bitch" of a boss and in an environment where cleaning up after hotel guests reveals an awful lot about adult life.
This review can only give a glimpse of what the 26 stories in this compilation offer. But go ahead, make your reservation and fly to Hotel China. You'll want to stay a while, and you will certainly meet someone you'll like.
- Editor's note: Hotel China is distributed by Chameleon Press, a company associated with this publication.
Robert H. Abel
26/01/2010
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Robert H. Abel is a USA-based writer who writes frequently on subjects related to China. He has published three novels (including Riding a Tiger) and three collections of stories. |
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