City Like Water

Strung together via dream logic, this startling experimental novel from Tse (Owlish) forays into a bizarre Hong Kong vanishing around its inhabitants. The unnamed narrator, now a young man, recounts his childhood when the world was whole and he lived with his parents, who fantasized about winning the lottery, and a younger sister whom everyone seemed to forget about. Things changed after his mother joined forces with other housewives to protest a local market’s shoddy produce, and police sprayed the women with a glitter powder that turned them into statues. Then his sister vanished out a bus window, only to return to him as a disembodied voice, and his father, who once worked at a toy factory and practiced tai chi in the park, became a couch potato, to the point of being absorbed into the home’s gigantic television set. Now, neighborhood vendors disappear around him, sidewalks turn to desert, and government checkpoints prevent easy travel. Tse risks incoherence with non sequiturs and ghastly images cramming each page, including an “island-shaped tumor” floating around the protagonist’s body, but a climactic twist ties it all together. For those willing to let these images wash over them, the novel offers a rewarding exploration of change and loss. Agent: Jessica Friedman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Mar.)