Rick Simonson

A Gift of Rain

It is not uncommon for authors to begin or end tours up in the Northwest corner where Seattle lies: down the West Coast from here and then to points east, or from back that way to California and then up, we in bookstores here often get people just starting out, trying to figure rhythm and pacing, or so at the end of things, they might be reading from work-in-progress instead of the book they're out stumping for. So it commonly goes.

It was a great surprise then, this past Tuesday, when Weinstein Books' Camille March (an Elliott Bay alum) brought author Tan Twan Eng by in the afternoon, before he would later read at the Seattle Public Central Library. Not only, we knew, was this the very beginning of Mr. Eng's brief (two-city) tour, but, we learned, it was his first day ever in the U.S. We knew he was coming from overseas - a Malaysian barrister (by education and, until recently, practice) born on the Malaysian island of Penang, and now based in both Kuala Lumpur and Cape Town, South Africa - but had no idea this was his first twenty-four hours in North America.

Tan Twan Eng is the author of The Gift of Rain (Weinstein), a debut novel first published in the UK by Myrmidon, a small house. It's an extraordinary tale, set on Penang, mostly before and during World War II, a time when it was still the British colony of Malaya, though over the course of the book, also occupied by Japan. It's largely told and seen through the eyes of a young man named Philip Hutton, youngest son of an English family with longstanding business interests in Penang. He is apart from all others in his family: alone of all, he is half-Chinese, son of a second marriage by his father. He has a presence in worlds no one else in his family does. How and where he belongs - who chooses him and who he choses - is key, as this book deftly develops. Young Philip becomes an aikido student to a young Japanese man, who also turns out to be a spy. Fate in all sorts of ways, unfolds. It's a book with horror and great tenderness beauty, beauty, devotion, and betrayal. It's about choices and consequences, holding close, and relinquishing. The place - Penang -  is physically, psychologically, emotionally conveyed, with delicacy and strength. It feels palpably present - its light, its heat, its darkness. 

Later, we would learn, it was barely picked up for sale in the UK - largely passed over (for subject matter and that its publisher is small). Its a novel I knew nothing of until seeing it appear on the Man Booker Prize longlist last year. One's curiosity is always raised by what's on that list - what books we'll have seen, or seen traces of, over here in the U.S., what not. It didn't appear to be on any U.S. publishers' lists (big or small) as far as could be seen. A colleague elsewhere, prone also to looking for the missed thing, and I exchanged our mutual curiosity, especially once some reading up was done on  The Gift of Rain's story.

There is perhaps some perversity here - though not able to keep up with all (even the all good) that comes my way in terms of advance copies, manuscripts and such, there is that hunter/gatherer part that still wants to go out and find things for oneself. It could be a customer, an article or news item, or, in this case, a kindred spirit in the business, helping point something out. I ordered copies from the UK which, upon I arrival, I gave good perusal to, but then put it in the same pile that had other wonders awaiting attention.

Sometime in Decemeber, as catalogs and lists were arriving for the spring, there, in the Weinstein Books list, was The Gift of Rain. Aha - our friends Judy Hottensen, Camille, Rob Weisbach (still there at the time) had now found it. In Louisville, at the ABA Winter Institute in January, Judy was talking it up, surprised that a few of us had already known about it. Her urging, though (for whatever was said earlier about going and finding things, there is still the correlating prod which one is keen to comply with, being friends and esteemed colleagues that are doing the prodding), prompted a few of us there (it was that big meet-the-authors session), to finally start reading it.

As readers, those of us who undertook The Gift of Rain were more than rewarded.  I couldn't think of a book that had taken me the places this one did quite as any other had for some long time. Others felt the same way. Even without the prospect of a possible author visit, Holly Myers at our place, Elliott Bay, picked it for our "Maiden Voyage" first-edition, first novel subscription book club; I would later hear that the Book Passage also selected it for its similar program. I gave an advance copy to a very good customer of our store - a great reader who loves internationally-set, serious  work by international writers, who travels a lot, and heads one of the city's most important arts institutions - and she raved about it. Any time she's since me since, she's commented on it, even now, some months later, saying it was one of those rare books which really stayed with you.

Part of Tan Twan Eng's time in the store was spent signing the many copies that would go to the Maiden Voyage subscribers - and to his getting to poke around. This being his first day in the U.S., it seemed likely this was his first U.S. bookstore - or, in his words, bookshop. His lawyerly reserve warmed up more and more - first in the store, then at the evening's reading at the library. (He came into the store in a tie; by the evening, the tie was off ... a quick learner, yes).

That evening, he gave a reading of great charm and care. He read two passages, then gave himself to a lively round of questions. A number in the audience had read it, thus bringing that knowledge - of a place that not so many in the U.S. have direct knowledge of - to the discussion. In those comments, and in those of others who've read the book, I found myself looking for comparisons, especially taking into view the modest (but expected)  size of the audience attending. One night it took me to was in early autumn 1989, when Kazuo Ishiguro came through, pre-Booker Prize, for The Remains of the Day. A modest gathering there was that night, but you felt something in the air with that book. So it was this evening with Twan and The Gift of Rain. I said something of this in introducing him - when Ishiguro came a year later, for the paperback, hundreds were on hand. I can imagine that with this book, if it gets picked up as it should. The audience gave a collective 'wow' when I said it was his first day in the U.S. Here he was.

In the q&a, some of Twan's most moving comments came with talk of writing the book. He wrote it in South Africa, where he had gone after the lawyer work he was doing in Kuala Lumpur was getting too interesting and dangerous (he was working on intellectual property and piracy issues, was starting to have to mess with organized criminal elements, etc.) The longing so palpably evident in the book was drawn out by his being so far from home. He described a desert place he was, how he missed the clockwork, predictably timed arrival of the tropical rains back in Penang. Sitting inside writing, he would hear a sound, run out thinking rain was falling, only to see the bare sky above. He also described missing the verdant lushness of home.

One hopes there will be more visits back to Seattle - and elsewhere in the U.S. This is a writer, one way or another, for readers to watch. On this quick, portentous-feeling visit, Seattle was nowhere near tropically warm. But the green lushness here, not found so commonly elsewhere in the U.S., particularly this wet and grey spring we've grumbled mightily about, the flowers and blooms and blossoms ... all felt more than usual, like fragrant, vivid, gifts of rain

Posted by Rick Simonson on May 16, 2008 | Comments (2)