Pao
A Novel
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
As a young boy, Pao comes to Jamaica in the wake of the Chinese civil war and rises to become the Godfather of Kingston's bustling Chinatown. Pao needs to take care of some dirty business, but he is no Don Corleone. The rackets he runs are small time and the protection he provides necessary, given the minority status of the Chinese in Jamaica. Pao, in fact, is a sensitive guy in a wise guy role that doesn't quite fit. Often mystified by all that he must take care of, Pao invariably turns to Sun Tsu's Art of War. The juxtaposition of the weighty, aphoristic words of the ancient Chinese sage, and the tricky criminal and romantic predicaments Pao must negotiate goes far toward explaining the novel's great charm.
A tale of post-colonial Jamaica from a unique and politically potent perspective, Pao moves from the last days of British rule through periods of unrest at social and economic inequality, though tides of change that will bring Rastafarianism and the Back to Africa Movement. Jamaica is transforming: And what is the place of a Chinese man in this new order? Pao is an utterly beguiling, unforgettable novel of race, class and creed, love and ambition, and a country in the throes of tumultuous change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Young's vexingly inert debut presents the post-WWII history of Jamaica as told in the pidgin English of Yang Pao, a Sun Tzu quoting strongman in Kingston's Chinatown. After arriving in the city in 1938, Pao rises through the ranks of the local underworld to run a protection and stolen goods racket, and falls in love with Gloria, a beautiful prostitute who bears him a child. But his ambitions lead him away from Gloria and toward Fay, the daughter of one of Kingston's richest Chinese men. After he marries Fay, Pao's business empire grows, but his personal life proves disastrous, leading him to consult The Art of War for advice. The unusual cultural perspective gives the novel's early pages some fire, but the decision to structure the book, particularly in the final third, around milestones of recent Jamaican history, makes the book feel more like an informal history, especially as political and economic minutiae of Jamaica's independence from Britain ("By the mid 1950s Jamaica was on the up, especially because they discover the bauxite") become more prevalent. Once the focus settles more on Jamaican politics than the characters, the story dries up and never recovers, and what felt at the outset like an intriguing epic ends up dull.
