Fiction Review: The Leavers

As most of my regular readers know, I have been frantically reading books in preparation for Booktopia this weekend, an event held annually at the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT. It’s a weekend totally focused on books where authors and readers hang out together and talk books for two days – I can’t wait! All of the books I’ve read for Booktopia have been great, but The Leavers by Lisa Ko really grabbed me. It’s an engrossing and powerful story of a boy torn between two families and two cultures.

As the novel opens, eleven-year old Deming is living in New York City with his mother, Polly (Peilan in her native China). Deming spent his first year in Manhattan with his mom but then lived in China with his grandfather until age five, while his mother tried to find a better job and get into a better situation for her son. They now live with her boyfriend, Leon, and his sister, Vivian, and her son, Michael, who is Deming’s age. The two boys call themselves cousins but are more like brothers, and the accidental family is happy together in their small apartment, while Polly works at a nail salon.

Then one day, Polly just disappears without a trace. She goes off to work in the morning as usual and never comes back. She had been talking about maybe moving to Florida for a better job, so Deming worries that she decided to go without him. But he know his mother loves him and would never leave him intentionally…doesn’t he? After she has been gone for six months, Leon returns to China and Vivian turns Deming over to the foster care system. A couple from upstate New York who both work as college professors soon adopt Deming.

Peter and Kay are very kind to Deming, whom they rename Daniel, but Deming is still confused and hurt by the events of the past year. What happened to his mother? Why did Vivian give him away? When will he be reunited with his real family? In Deming/Daniel’s new school, he is the only Asian kid, and people keep misunderstanding his background, even when he tells them repeatedly that he is from New York, not China. Daniel does make a friend in his new town, though – a boy named Roland who is also something of an outcast, as he is half-Mexican.

The novel moves back and forth in time, from Deming’s early life with his mother and his transition to living with Peter and Kay to the present day as Daniel, when he is in his twenties and living in New York, playing in a band with Roland. Daniel is constantly rocked by uncertainties, worrying that he is a disappointment to his adoptive parents, while still wondering what happened to his mother. Some chapters are from Deming’s perspective and some are from Polly’s perspective, filling in details about her own childhood in China, how she came to New York, and eventually, what happened to her.

This is a moving, powerful story of immigrants and of the unbreakable bond between a mother and son. It is, in turns, shocking, sad, and joyful. I was completely captivated by this original story of being torn between cultures – as both Deming and Polly are – and figuring out who you are. The Leavers won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver (one of myall-time favorite authors) for a novel that addresses issues of social justice, and that award was well-deserved. The novel is superbly written, as well as compelling. I think this is Lisa Ko’s first novel, though her short stories have appeared – and been lauded – in many publications. I can’t wait to meet her this weekend and see what she comes up with next!

352 pages, Algonquin Books

The Leavers
by Lisa KoHardcover

The Leavers