Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
(Fourth Estate $34.99)
Famines, disasters, turmoil and poverty have driven millions of Chinese people from their homes to foreign lands for centuries. Now the grand-daughters and grandsons of the original "sons of the yellow emperor" are returning home; history has turned full circle.
In his third novel, Tash Aw, who was brought up in Malaysia, brings together five disparate - and desperate - Malaysians of Chinese origin caught in the vortex of fast-changing Shanghai. Through their intertwining lives, he presents a bleak picture of desolation and loneliness, where money can't buy happiness.
Aw's award-winning debut, The Harmony Silk Factory, was set in Malaya during the Japanese Occupation, its protagonist a double-crossing textile tycoon whose son describes him as "a liar, a cheat, a traitor, and a skirt-chaser". Map of the Invisible World took place in the turbulent Indonesia of 1960s, when the dictator Sukarno's deluded rhetoric was taking a toll on the lives of the poor, as two brothers sought to understand their past from different vantage-points. In Five Star Billionaire, Aw introduces rich and poor overseas Chinese, trying to make their mark by leaving Malaysia for China. Uprooted once, never feeling entirely at home, many looked abroad and in this century, that often means China.
Phoebe escapes rural Malaysia for Guangdong, meant to be a stop on her way to Shanghai. She is determined to find herself a boyfriend, later a husband, who will care for her. Devoid of scruples, she will recreate herself, building confidence via questionable self-help books and an imaginary narrative. The anonymity of internet chatrooms facilitates her own pursuit of happiness.