海角大神

鈥淓veryone had stories they told themselves to get through the days,鈥� Deming Guo muses the evening of his 22nd birthday, summing up a lifetime of leaving 鈥� and being left 鈥� that has defined his short life thus far. Deming, also known as Daniel Wilkinson, provides half of the dual narrative of Lisa Ko鈥檚 achingly insightful, gorgeously redemptive debut novel,聽The Leavers; the other half belongs to Deming鈥檚 鈥淢ama鈥� 鈥� the only person Deming will ever gift that name 鈥� a woman also multi-monikered as Peilan Guo, Polly Guo, and Polly Lin. Ko cleverly indicates changing, adapting, reclaiming identities by how mother and son use their names. In an uncertain world of "what-if鈥檚" and "might/could/should-have-been鈥檚," the pair will become their own doppelg盲ngers, imagining other lives, searching to live beyond mere survival.

Born in Manhattan, Deming has had many homes, but never felt at home. He arrived Stateside in utero when Polly left her Chinese village, desperate for options beyond the tedium of being a factory girl or the boy-next-door鈥檚 wife. Life as an illegal Chinatown immigrant 鈥� stifling hours at a sewing machine, sharing a crowded dormitory-style room, constantly calculating how to pay off the $50,000 smuggling fee 鈥� doesn鈥檛 leave room for motherhood, forcing Polly to reluctantly send one-year-old Deming to China to be raised by her father.

Deming returns to New York five years later, and for the five years that follow, Deming and Polly become a family with Polly鈥檚 boyfriend Leon, his sister Vivian, and her son Michael. They鈥檙e crammed into a one-bedroom Bronx apartment, never have enough money, the adults constantly worry over documentation 鈥� but none of that deters the family from planning, bonding, dreaming. Until Polly disappears.

Without answers 鈥� or hope 鈥� the made-up family scatters: Leon leaves, Vivian and Michael leave, but not before Vivian leaves Deming in care of the foster care system. At 11, he moves to Ridgeborough, a small town in upstate New York, to live with white, affluent, college professors Kay and Peter Wilkinson; by 12, he鈥檚 legally their son, his birth certificate rewritten to erase his connection to Polly. He鈥檚 the only Asian American at his new school, friendless until he meets Roland, a mixed-race Latino classmate. 鈥淎s long as he didn鈥檛 think about his mother, Deming was not that unhappy in Ridgeborough.鈥�

Ten years later, Daniel returns to Manhattan. He鈥檚 left university, in debt, sleeping on Roland鈥檚 couch. After a decade apart, Michael finds Daniel via email, and suddenly, Deming has links to his past 鈥� including his never-forgotten Mama.

In a revelatory on her website, Ko reveals how Polly was inspired by the story of Xiu Ping Jiang, an undocumented immigrant profiled in . That Jiang鈥檚 8-year-old son was caught by immigration officials while entering the US from Canada and later adopted by a Canadian family resonated sharply. Further research revealed comparable stories of children cleaved from their 鈥渦nfit鈥� immigrant parents and granted to 鈥渇it鈥� American parents. Ko channeled further fury at the heinous conditions of the for-profit detention centers where the undocumented are imprisoned for months, even years.

As the New York-born child of ethnic Chinese parents who were born and raised in the Philippines and then immigrated to the US from there, Ko grew up 鈥渓egal鈥� in a mostly-white suburb outside NYC. Her parents often reminded her how 鈥渓ucky鈥� she was, 鈥渂ut lucky also felt like a warning 鈥� how precarious status could be.鈥� Ko channels that unsettled anxiety into Deming: a boy who feels "visible and invisible at the same time,鈥� he observes, his bewilderment magnified with each of his displacements.

In giving Deming鈥檚 voice prominence, 鈥淚 want to decenter the narrative of transracial adoption away from that of the adoptive parents,鈥� Ko explains in an with Barbara Kingsolver, who established the PEN/Bellwether Prize to 鈥減romote fiction that addresses issues of social justice,鈥� which 鈥滾eavers鈥� most recently won. 鈥淚nstead,鈥� Ko continues, 鈥渨e need to privilege the voices of adoptees, who are often missing from the conversation or dismissed as being bitter if they鈥檙e honest or critical about their experiences.鈥� Ko doesn鈥檛 shy away, exposing issues of cultural illiteracy between parent and child, even touching on the high rate of suicide among transracial adoptees.

Although Ko began writing 鈥淟eavers鈥� in 2009, headlines regarding immigrants have hardly changed: round-ups, detention, deportation, separated families 鈥� especially tragic are recent because of legal loopholes to a birth country they left as children . Beyond the desensitizing media coverage, Ko gives faces, (multiple) names, and details to create a riveting story of a remarkable family coming, going, leaving 鈥� all in hopes of someday returning to one another. 聽

Terry Hong writes , a book blog for the .