Braised Pork

February 15, 2020
In searching for answers to her husband's untimely death, a young widow in Beijing finds room to explore her own existential angst. Jia Jia is packing for an out-of-town holiday when she finds her husband, Cheng Hang, drowned in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment. It speaks to the quality of their marriage that she immediately feels resentment and disgust bubble up to the surface. "He had never loved her, no, she knew that much. She was not a fool. But they had promised each other a lifelong partnership, held together if not by love, then by their declared intention to have a family. And so as long as he had assured her that he intended to remain married to her, everything else had been forgivable." In the disorienting weeks after her husband's death, Jia Jia is liberated from societal expectations and the crushing isolation of their loveless marriage. She is free to pursue her art and even strikes up a friendship with Leo, a handsome bartender her own age. But an arresting sketch of a "fish-man" that Cheng Hang leaves behind on a pile of towels in the bathroom where he died makes Jia Jia restless. Why did her husband draw this strange creature with the head of a man and the body of a fish? Why does it draw Jia Jia in? Remembering that her husband told her he'd dreamed about this fish-man while he was on a spiritual trip to Tibet about a month earlier, Jia Jia decides to travel there for answers. Yu's original debut spins an increasingly surreal tale which brilliantly mirrors Jia Jia's own discombobulation. The fish-man plotline might not fully submerge the reader in the narrative, but the lush atmosphere and fast-paced story make up for it. Also, Jia Jia's vulnerability makes her easy to root for as she begins to find her footing in the world. Proof positive that rebirths are entirely possible--even in one lifetime.

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March 15, 2020
Chen Hang is facedown in the bathtub when his wife, Jia Jia, discovers his naked corpse. Married for four years, their intended lifelong partnership didn't include love, at least not for each other. After vomiting her insuppressible resentment and disgust, Jia Jia finds a pencil drawing of a fish with a human head, clearly sketched by Chen Hang. She recalls a middle-of-the-night phone conversation a month ago when Chen Hang called from his solo Tibet trip to tell Jia Jia of a disturbing dream featuring a fish-man. When elements of that dream haunt Jia Jia's slumber, she reclaims her pre-marriage artist identity and attempts to paint the otherworldly fish-man into understanding. Meanwhile, her waking life needs attention, too, including as it does an uncertain affair with a local bartender, possible reconciliation with her runaway father, and unexpected revelations about her late mother. Beijing born-and-raised An Yu, who writes in English, transforms her home city into an affecting backdrop for her first novel as she exposes and confronts the detachment between those meant to be most connected.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)