Jay's family go south for the summer, following the death of his Grandfather, who has left a farm to his daughter in law , Jay's mother. 16 year old Jay also finds love for the first time.
The title of the book, the fact it was a "coming of age story" and one of the characters working in a 7-11 threw me a bit at start and whilst it soon became apparent that this was a story about a Chinese Malaysian family; this is a universal story of families and love. Whilst the headline of the novel is Jay finding his first love , it is subtly setting the scene for shining the light on the rest of family and the quartet of books to come. A slow moving book where everything happens but also nothing really does. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment of the Lim family Saga.

The English based, Taiwan-born Malaysian author Tash Aw has twice been longlisted for the Booker Prize – in 2005 for his debut “Harmony Silk Road” and 2013 for his third novel “Five Star Billionaire”.

This is his fifth novel (to be published later in 2025) and is billed as the “first in a quartet of novels that form Tash Aw’s masterful portrait of a family navigating a period of great change” (it is unclear if subsequent novels’ titles will be based on Cardinal Points as the title here is very appropriate to the novel).

The novel is set in Malaysia – opening I believe in December 2008 in the aftermath of the financial crisis – and that crisis and its rather catastrophic impact on the Malaysian economy sits very much in the background of the novel adding to the period of change that the family faces.

The family in question are:

Father Jack Lim (approaching sixty) – very much a patriarchal and private figure in his own family, but at work a mathematics teacher/lecturer at a “second rate technical college” who has been overlooked for promotion on a number of occasions despite his mathematical ability due it seems to his Chinese race.

His wife Sui Ching (15 years younger) – originally his student and never really accepted by Jack’s mother (now nearly eighty) as suitable for his son due to her country and relatively poor origins.

Oldest daughter Lina (20) – who against her father’s wishes has gone to art school at a public university and is increasingly independent from her family

Younger daughter Yin (18) – herself on the verge of college

And the son Jay (16) – rather at a loss as to his future – given he seems to lack ability and focus at school and the economy means a lack of both employment prospects and tuition fee funding from his parents

And the book opens shortly after the death of Jack’s 90 something father – much closer to Sui than Jack’s mother – as Sui decides the family will head South for the holidays, partly to give the newly mourning Grandmother some space but also to visit a piece of land long owned by Jack’s father (and in fact the first land be bought on settling in Malaysia) and which now belongs to Sui.

The farm, which the family have visited before, is run by the long term farm manager Fong (whose full relationship with the family only becomes clear over time), a small group of itinerant farm labours and his twenty year old son Chuan – but the lack of investment in the farm from Jack and his father, the poor soil and the economic background have made the farm close to unviable (despite various plans Fong devises) and Chuan spends much of his time working at a 7-11 in the nearest town.

We know from the novel’s opening that Jay and Chuan form a friendship which tentatively becomes a sexual relationship, but there are a myriad of other complex interactions playing out across the novel many of which emerge over time as family secrets: the complex interaction between Jack and Fong; Sui’s friendship with and care for Fong and her bitterness towards Jack; the two daughters breaking free in different ways from their parents; both Jack and Chuan believing they are distancing themselves from their fathers even as Sui observes that “Fathers and sons; they believe, furiously, that they are the opposite of each other, but they are in fact perfect reproductions”; Jack’s concerns for his future (as things at the school have gone much worse than the children realise); Fong’s worries over the future of the farm – and more.

And the narrative style keeps the book interesting – switching between point of view and between first and third person and sometimes with a narrator effectively observing themselves now and in the future which leads to some beautiful writing.

So all in all a lot to like in this novel – but even without knowing it was part of a quartet I think it would have felt rather incomplete, and given the relatively short length of the novel I am not really clear on the decision to not write more of the complete series before publishing it. Although the writing is excellent I don’t think the characters are hugely memorable and with limited plot development (much of it interior) then unless the intention is for the other volumes to follow in short order I suspect this may be a series best read once complete.