Love and Other Consolation Prizes

October 9, 2017
In this uneven novel from Ford (Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair brings back memories for Ernest Young, né Yung Kun-ai, a man in his 60s. In 1902, Ernest travels in steerage to the United States and ends up in a Seattle orphanage. In 1909 he’s auctioned off at the World’s Fair, becoming a houseboy in an upscale brothel in the Tenderloin district. There he befriends Fahn, a Japanese girl who was in steerage with him seven years prior, and Maisie, the madam’s daughter, falling in love with both of them. Back in 1962, it’s made clear that Ernest’s ailing wife, now called Gracie, shares his difficult past—but which girl he married frustratingly isn’t revealed until late in the book. Their grown children, Hanny, a Vegas dancer, and Juju, a journalist, don’t have the full story about their parents’ history until Juju discovers an article about a boy auctioned off at the 1909 fair whose name was “Ernest” and wants to delve further into it. Despite the book’s flaws, Ford nevertheless excels at juxtaposing Seattle in the 1910s, with its Temperance movements, prostitution, and political involvement in the city’s underbelly, against the glitter and promise of the 1962 World’s Fair.

At the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, a child was given away as a raffle prize. In this thoroughly researched audiobook, Ford imagines a life for that boy as a servant in Seattle's red light district and explores his relationships with two young women--the madam's daughter, Maisie, and a Japanese kitchen maid, Fahn. Narrator Emily Woo Zeller brings Yung Kim, later renamed Ernest Young, and a cast of diverse and colorful characters to life with her expressive performance. Parallel storylines explore Ernest's youth and his life in 1962, the year of the Seattle World's Fair. Zeller subtly alters her voice so that the characters seem to age but remain unique and identifiable. A passionate performance of a romantic story. E.C. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine