For today I am a boy - review by Maggie Rainey-Smith

For today I am a boy

Kim Fu

Vintage Australia

RRP $39.99

This novel arrived, accompanied by a media release saying ' early reviews from around the world are unanimous: For Today I Am a Boy is a masterpiece... drawing comparisons from Jeffrey Eugenides' 'Middlesex' and the work of Amy Tan.'   'Middlesex' is one of my all-time favourite 'coming of age' novels, so this left Kim Fu with quite a lot to live up to.

                Kim Fu is a first-time novelist but has published poetry, essays and long-form journalism.   She is a Seattle-based writer and editor.   The cover of this novel is most alluring.  It is an androgynous Asian face, divided in two, the one side demurely male and the other a delicately feminine face overlaid with colourful Chinese artwork.

                Peter Huang is the only son of Canadian Chinese immigrants from Fort Michael, Ontario.   Peter's father, speaks Cantonese for the very last time when his son is born and he names him Juan Chaun (meaning Powerful King).   This is the legacy that Peter who believes himself to be a girl, struggles to live up to. Peter is the third child in a family of four.  The other three are his sisters, Adele, Helen and Bonnie.  

                In the prologue we meet Peter's mother as she gives birth, one by one to her four children. It is a tightly written introduction to the family, over four pages.  I was gripped by the opening scene as Peter's mother imagines herself a body in the butcher's shop and wonders about the cooking of human ears 'She could stew them, char them in a skillet, watch her skin blister and pop.' For some reason, I was reminded of the opening scene in Carol Shields 'The Stone Diaries'.  I felt immediately drawn right into the heart of the Huang family.

                The novel moves then to the first person narrative by Peter as he negotiates being in a boy's body while wishing to be and identifying within as a girl.  It begins with his experiences in the school playground with the bullies and his relationship with his conservative Chinese father, who perhaps suspects that Peter is struggling to live up to the moniker of Powerful King.

                Fu's prose is very assured for a first-time novelist.   And too, at times I felt this very aspect of the writing  worked against Peter and his journey.   Instead of a sustained narrative, at times it felt like very beautifully crafted episodes and I wanted just a little more than this very tight, clever prose sometimes offered me.   I wanted more time to digest what was happening to Peter.  Having said that, I couldn't help but admire and be impressed by the writing.

                 We don't stay on Peter's journey, but digress frequently into the lives of his sisters - and here, I quibble (although not loudly), because the first person narrative slips somehow into the eye of God.  It confused me and it also frustrated the thread of the story.  Here, the comparisons to Amy Tan seem relevant, with the daughters' response to their conservative upbringing and in particular the relationship with their mother. 

                Peter leaves school and gets work as a kitchen hand . Here in the, at times brutal hierarchy of the kitchen Peter encounters versions of masculinity other than the model his father offers.  Too, the details of a commercial kitchen, the conversations and the goings on, are sharp, authentic and feel very real.  He makes tentative steps towards exploring his sexuality including a very sad and abusive relationship with an older woman. 

                It took until nearly the end of the novel for my heart to really engage with Peter - and I wondered if this was intended by the author - that we remain just a bit at a distance from Peter as he grows towards understanding and acceptance of his true self.  My heart was first really moved after Peter's father has died and his mother tries to catch a bus from Canada down into the USA without a return ticket.  Prior to this, she has never travelled or made her own decisions.   This moment when the mother encounters the border guards, is when my heart was finally really engaged.   Prior to this, I was absolutely engaged as a reader, but wanting a closer relationship with the characters.

                And then, nearer to the end, as Peter meets a new model of masculinity, one that he can barely believe, and we see him taking tentative steps to accepting his own true identity as a girl, it is then and only then, that I felt the emotional response that I had expected (wanted) to feel earlier on.   I loved when Peter finally had the courage to go out in public as a girl.

                There is no doubt about the precocious writing talent of Kim Fu and this is definitely an excellent debut, but it didn't quite match for me the stunning coming of age story of 'Middlesex' - there just wasn't quite enough tenderness.   Also, it felt that Peter's sisters' lives were just a distraction, but in a different and longer novel, this could have been a fascinating saga of immigrant children.   But mostly, I wanted to know more about Peter and to stay closer to him on his journey.

About the reviewer:

Maggie Rainey-Smith is a Wellington writer and regular reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog.  http://acurioushalfhour.wordpress.com