"The Family Chao" by Lan Samantha Chang

An audio book.

On the way home after his first term at University, still a virgin, James tries to resuscitate an old man. His oriental parents have had a restaurant for decades, adapting their authentic menu to US tastes. The community is glad that the restaurant is still open, though the father's rather objectionable. Many ethnic outlets are moving away. His mother has recently moved into a Buddhist nunnery. Dargo (William), his handsome brother, has just split with Katherine (she's oriental, an orphan brought up by non-asians in the States) after 12 years. His brother Ming is the clever one. At least some of the brothers were bullied. People speculated that some of the brothers disliked their father Leo. They were brought up Christian. James has always fancied Alice, who works at the wholesale store.

Dargo wants money because he's bought an appartment to live with Brenda (who slept with all the cast in a school play). He asks his father for partnership in the firm, and asks Katherine for the return of his expensive engagement ring.

Alice is an artist. She hasn't even kissed a boy. She asks James for sex. He ejaculates with his clothes still on. He receives a message that his mother's had a stroke. He learns that the bag he picked up after helping the man had lots of cash in it. Where did it end up?

Dargo's mother tells him that he must love his cheating father otherwise he won't love the world. Dargo puts on a grand Xmas meal hoping to impress Brenda, his mother, and the community. A rival gives him a gift of meat. At the meal his father announces that he's selling the restaurant. It's suspected that the meat gift was the Chao's dog Alf. The father dies in suspicious circumstances. Soon after the mother dies (another stroke). Dargo is put on trial. The brothers are discussed online.

In court it's as if the family and their race are on trial rather than an individual. People wearing various badges (including "Justice for Alf" badges) appear at the trial. The bag contained $50. Olem (a worker at the restaurant) heard Dargo and his father argue about it. We learn that James found his father's body in the deep freeze room. The key to exit it was gone. Dargo says in court that he'd thought of locking his father in there but bottled out at the last moment. He breaks down hating his own weakness. Ming says that he'd hidden the key, that it was all his fault, and has a mental breakdown.

Outside court Olem says that she's Leo's daughter. Leo treated her mother badly, stealing from her to have the money to go to the States. Olem admits to being an immigrant without documentation. She says that when their mother suspected who Olem was, their mother went to the Buddhists. Alf is found.

Olem has the ring and the bag with $50k. James knows this, and that Olem was implicated in the murder, but doesn't say. Dargo gets 30 years. He feels he deserves it. Katherine remains bafflingly faithful, a friend of the family. Alice goes to New York thanks to contacts given to her by Ming.

For a whodunnit it does a good job of handling other themes. I missed the connections to “The Brothers Karamazov” (which I've not read). The brothers' attitude to Asians, their parents, the American Dream, etc are revealing. I like the way that the trial is used to bring these themes to the fore.

Other reviews

• Jonathan Lee (At the novel’s halfway point we are confronted with the words “THREE MONTHS LATER”. The central events on which the plot turns have taken place off stage, in an unlit space. Chang is more interested in consequences ... however appalled the sons might be by their father’s perspectives, they continue to absorb elements of his character. You are what you eat, the novel seems to suggest. And you eat what your family, or your country, puts on the table.)
• writingnearthelake
• lonesomereader (Lan Samantha Chang gives a modern-day retelling of “The Brothers Karamazov” to relate the story of a family with a domineering patriarch and three very different Chinese-American sons ... Leo is rudely vicious in maintaining his dominance and ready to serve up whatever the public wants to feed their appetites and line his pockets. He succumbs to the American ideology that whatever is most profitable is also correct. ... the tragedy which occurs sparks public reactions showing deep-seeded stereotypes and biases. Though their situation is unique and the brothers come armed with different points of view, they are churned into an ongoing discourse. It takes honest reconciliations to extract themselves from this and persist in building their own lives.)