Description

"Elegance plus pity—that may be the nearest we are able to reach a description of art."—Vladimir NabokovIn this tragicomic contemporary immigrant's story, Malcolm Kwan is just a slacker twenty-something Asian-Canadian residing in Vancouver who is approximately to attempt an acting job when his existence is abruptly derailed by two near-parallel events: the death of his filmmaker dad, and the infidelity of his girlfriend who has left him. Quickly he fulfills Hadley, the half sister he never knew existed?caused by his father's extra-marital affair?and as their sensitive partnership develops, Malcolm is forced to face his past relationships with women, including their own mother, a skill educator working through her suffering in addition to her bitterness at her boy befriending her spouse's daughter.Written with a winsome yet plaintive attention, Elegance Plus Shame is approximately a guy who's forced to reckon with the past as he works through his life-long ambivalence toward his hyphenated social identification, and between two parents keeping excruciating secrets.Kevin Chong may be the writer of the Book Baroque-a-Nova (Plume) and the memoir Neil Young Country (Greystone Books).