Han Ong

This novel by playwright Han Ong is a fable of a down-on-his luck Filipino man who becomes a noted Chinese expert on Feng shui, bilking upper class Manhattanites out of their hard-earned money. Ong's debut novel follows William Paulinka as he relates his tale of hustling for money at the Port Authority bus terminal to buying cashmere blankets and forty dollar a jar hair pomade. William is a likeable character and it seems entirely righteous that he swindle these characters, as if it were divine providence. At least, this is how William portrays it. Considering he is a hustler and a cheat, we have an entirely unreliable and morally unredeemable protagonist - why should we believe or sympathize with anything he says or does?
For one, William is caught in this game of deceit by Shem, a man who had access and privilege and is the mastermind of the whole plot to swindle these rich city dwellers. Two, we see how William lives and the squalor which is his daily life - how we can judge his actions when he is confronted with an opportunity to make some money and not have to sell his body to do it?
A remarkable novel with intriguing characters, including one of William's victims, Kendo, who, seeing William as his entre to the criminal underworld, latches onto William with tenacious intensity. There is Preciosa, William's upstairs neighbor, a fellow immigrant from the Phillipines, and a secretive woman whose past intrigues William. There are the numerous rich dupes, most importantly Suzy Yamada, who resembles Kirosawa's Isenzu Yamada in looks and spirit. It is she who becomes William's (or, "Master Chao", as he is introduced to society) nemesis and the villain of the novel.
William's story is primarily one of self-discovery, as he faces racism, classism and the anitpathy of the rich for the poor, who work for them and serve them.
Fixer Chao is an examination or a distilling of these two opposing worlds, brought to a closer view as William steps between the two so effortlessly as Master Chao. His personal growth and journey becomes an odyssey for the reader as well. An intriguing view of the social stratification and one man's attempts to climb up and out of indigence and despair.
(Read January 2002)… (mais)