The Foreigner

"Francie Lin's first novel, The Foreigner, is told by a 40-year-old virgin, Emerson Chang, whose weekly dinner with his Taiwanese mother is the bane (as well as the high point) of his social life . . . Lin marvelously renders the comic tragedy of Emerson's painfully terrible birthday dinner, and in doing so sets up what will turn out to be a powerful contrast to the rest of her story, one set in Taiwan's world of organized crime . . . the vivid [Taipei] settings into which Lin, a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan from 2001-2002, drops an utterly unprepared Emerson are disorienting and bleakly scary, evocative of films such as Lost in Translation and Bladerunner. Emerson is a foreigner in every sense: lost and innocent, out of his depth and speaking almost none of the language. He will need a remarkably long time to recognize the mysterious, depraved world [his brother] Little P inhabits.  Emerson is a fascinating character. He clings to Little P when Little P clearly wishes to be left alone. He carries around his mother's ashes in a purse on a string; he even sleeps with the purse. Meanwhile, breathing, interested women can't stir the least response in him . . . [Lin] demonstrates an admirable range and skill in The Foreigner. She's capable of writing both marvelous humor and scenes of utter darkness in her tale of a naive man at a complete loss for dealing with the world."—Irene Wanner, The San Francisco Chronicle

 

"[Lin] has much to say about the clash of East and West and the sometimes shaky bonds of family, wrapping her sly observations in an entertaining coating of ever-propulsive narrative that turns Emerson from a rich boy into a warier, sleeker, wiser man.”—The Baltimore Sun