Ed Lin has a new book! I had no idea. This Is a Bust
, the second novel from award-winning author Ed Lin, is now out. His first book was Waylaid, about the horny 12-year-old son of Taiwanese immigrant parents who own a rundown motel on the New Jersey coast (an inspiration for Michael Kang's awesome movie The Motel). It's a great book, and I've been looking forward to more work from Ed Lin, but I had no idea the follow-up was published back in the fall.This one's apparently a noir-ish murder mystery that "turns the conventions of hard-boiled pulp stories on their head by exploring the unexotic and very real complexities of New York City's Chinatown, circa 1976, through the eyes of a Chinese-American cop." Hell yes. Sounds good to me. Here's the plot description from the Kaya website:
A Vietnam vet and an alcoholic, Robert Chow's troubles are compounded by the fact that he's basically community-relations window-dressing for the NYPD: he's the only Chinese American on the Chinatown beat, and the only police officer who can speak Cantonese, but he's never assigned anything more challenging than appearances at store openings or community events. Chow is willing to stuff down his feelings and hang tight for a promotion to the detective track, despite the community unrest that begins to roil around him. But when his superiors remain indifferent to an old Chinese woman's death, he is forced to take matters into his own hands. This Is a Bust is at once a murder mystery, a noir homage and a devastating, uniquely nuanced portrait of a neighborhood in flux, stuck between old rivalries and youthful idealism.To learn more about the book, go here. Ed Lin's got a website, complete with blog, here: Ed Lin for President (EdLin.com was apparently already taken). He's also got a MySpace page here.
For those of you in the New York area, Ed Lin will be reading and signing This Is a Bust at the Museum of Chinese in America, this Thursday, January 17 at 7:00pm. 70 Mulberry Street, 2nd floor (at Bayard Street). $3/5 members/non-members. To RSVP for event, and for more info on MOCA programs, you can call 212-619-4785 ext 106 and visit the website here. Excuse me now, as I go order the book.