A Paper Son

November 2, 2015
Buchholz’s gripping debut is a clever supernatural thriller that plays with readers’ narrative expectations. During a massive storm in present-day San Francisco, third-grade teacher Peregrine Long witnesses a vision in his teacup of a Chinese-American family on a ship entering a harbor in China. Unable to explain the experience, he decides to write a short story about the family: in 1925, Bing and Li-Yu leave their home in California with their two children, Rose and Henry, and sail across the Pacific to reunite with their family in a rural Chinese village. Peregrine’s story is published in a small journal, and the very next day, Eva Wong, an elderly Chinese-American woman, arrives at his apartment; his tale exactly retells her family history. Though neither of them understands what’s happening, Eva implores Peregrine to continue writing so she can find out what happened to her uncle, Henry. Peregrine seeks advice from his sister and a fellow teacher while he attempts to understand the mysterious story. As the storm rages on for weeks, Peregrine continues to have visions and compulsively writes what he sees. Water is a recurring theme that ties together the many threads—from the nonstop rain in San Francisco, to pools, rivers, and oceans, to the flooded rice paddies in 1920s rural China. Rich, interesting characters fill this fast-paced, magical realist novel about family connections.