Though I Get Home

Starred review from February 1, 2018
A mosaic of stories about state- and self-imposed silence and what it means to find your voice.The 14 stories in Chin's debut collection are centered around Malaysia: the people, culture, and country. Interconnected (sometimes loosely, sometimes overtly) by characters, the stories also share themes like patriotism, censorship, personhood, and art as protest. In "When Starbucks Came," a woman contemplates her unfulfilling relationship in the wake of the coffee chain's opening a store in Taiping. In "A Malaysian Man in Mayor Bloomberg's Silicon Alley," a young man living in America returns home to vote and struggles with his dueling identities. When asked by the American woman he's dating for one thing only true Malaysians would know, he replies: "we either think we are the best country in the world, or the worst country in the world." These stories exist in the gray area in between. Corruption and state violence exist in the same world as forbidden family stories and "rain-betting."Isabella Sin, who serves as the throughline for the collection, is first introduced in "Though She Gets Home" when she goes to her first protest and is later arrested for writing "inflammatory...pornographic" poems. An unexpected twist slowly revealed over the course of a few stories leads to the final tale, "So She Gets Home," which sees Isabella home from the "country's most notorious prison." In the wake of her detainment, she is trying to navigate the Venn diagram of her identity: how others define her and how she defines herself. The idea of becoming who she is meant to be leaves the sometimes-devastating book on a hopeful note.A haunting, surprising, and rebellious collection that contains multitudes.

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June 11, 2018
Fourteen short stories intertwine in Chin’s beautiful, visceral collection. In the early 21st century, Isabella “Isa” Sin, 28, wants to be a writer. Instead, she’s imprisoned in her native Malaysia for writing an obscene poem that supports the leader of the young people’s political movement against the corrupt government. Her grandfather served the British colonizers when the country was still known as Malaya (“The Butler Opens the Door”), and though things have changed by Isa’s time, there is still great political unrest in Malaysia. After her arrest, the youth movement gains national attention, the country irate over her imprisonment (“Though She Gets Home”). The guards interrogate and demean her while she maintains that she wrote the poems out of love for her country. Isa’s imprisonment gains wide attention as the nation faces the impending election. The younger generation is hopeful for change, the older skeptical (“A Malaysian Man in Mayor Bloomberg’s Silicon Alley”). A surprising, pivotal fact about Isa’s arrest comes to light, showing the sad truth of what it often takes to bring a small, developing nation’s problems to international attention (“So She Gets Home”). Some stories fit more seamlessly into the main narrative than others, but together, they powerfully call into question what it means to be free.