The Banquet Bug

From Publishers Weekly
Yan, whose short fiction was the basis for the movie Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, offers a pointed critique of capitalism's rise in her native China. A multifaceted mistaken-identity farce, Yan's novel chronicles the adventures of Dan Dong, a laid-off factory worker who wanders into a lavish banquet where journalists are wined and dined and receive "money for your troubles" fees for listening to—and hopefully reporting on—the presentations of corporations and charities. Dan quickly orders business cards that "said he was a reporter from some Internet news site," and hops aboard the banquet gravy train. Yan revels in the absurdity of her premise, and her over-the-top descriptions of banquet fare underscore her outrage at the few who gorge themselves on "animals from remote mountains and forests" while millions starve. The story changes gears, though, when Dan's reportage leads him into a dangerous, far-reaching scandal and he is arrested during a crackdown on "banquet bugs." Yan's concept is clever, but wooden dialogue and some awkward descriptions make it clear that English is not her mother tongue, though this also leads to some seductively nuanced moments ("He smells rather than hears her words carried on her smoky breath") that hint at her enormous potential. (July 11)

From Booklist
Journalists who attend banquets in Beijing to promote a cause or a product are also given "a little something for their trouble." Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker, is one of these journalists, but he has no credentials: he is a banquet bug. Through this new career he meets a variety of people, several of whom are impressed by his prevaricating. They beg him to listen to their tales of woe and to write about them, in hopes of addressing the wrongs done to them or to their families. Dan becomes deeply concerned for them but also feels increasingly like their desperate hope, and not a real person anymore. A fable, perhaps a satire, this is a rather difficult book to read. It's edgy, it's strange, and the story is somewhat convoluted, giving the reader the sense it was meant to be funnier than most will find it. But the author did succeed, if indeed it was her intention, in depicting a distressing level of corruption and totalitarianism in the China she left behind. Recommended for large libraries. Maureen O'Connor

Geling Yan was born in Shanghai and began writing in the late 1970s as a journalist. Her first novel was published in China in 1985. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre, she left China for the United States. Since then she has written many short stories, including one that was made into the award-winning film Xiu Xiu The Sent-Down Girl. She lives in San Francisco and Africa.