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A review by bookwormkendra
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin
4.0
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaways. I've never read a Western before but have dabbled with some more modern Western movie/TV releases that I've enjoyed. This had all the good elements of an old-timey Western (various outlaws, gun fights, horses, distinctive unforgiving landscape, a little bit of sex) with a new, relevant protagonist and non-traditional cast of characters that I really liked (including a band of supes that make their living as a traveling side show that Ming encounters on his travels and gets hired to protect). The mystical and/or supernatural plays a critical role in the book without completely overpowering it.
Tom Lin drew attention to modern racism in American society with the type of racism that troubled the protagonist in this book: namely Ming is placed into a box labeled "Chinese immigrant who is working on building the railroad" (and therefore viewed as lesser-than) by most people, when in reality that's far from the truth. He was born in America to Chinese parents, but was raised by white people and only speaks English. This provoked me to think more about modern America and reminded me of the opening of Ronald Takaki's book [b:A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America|37564|A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America|Ronald Takaki|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439467571l/37564._SY75_.jpg|37420] where Takaki regularly encountered people who automatically assumed him a foreigner based on his Asian appearance despite the fact that he was born in America and was a celebrated and accomplished PhD and professor at Berkeley. Kudos to Lin for incorporating this as a prominent aspect of the plot that requires the reader to confront some of their own assumptions about other people in their everyday life.
I also want to note that I enjoyed the author's writing style and use of punctuation or lack thereof in certain scenarios to conjure up different feelings/convey experiences for the main character.
Ok so who's going to adapt this into a film now? I'd be into it.
Tom Lin drew attention to modern racism in American society with the type of racism that troubled the protagonist in this book: namely Ming is placed into a box labeled "Chinese immigrant who is working on building the railroad" (and therefore viewed as lesser-than) by most people, when in reality that's far from the truth. He was born in America to Chinese parents, but was raised by white people and only speaks English. This provoked me to think more about modern America and reminded me of the opening of Ronald Takaki's book [b:A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America|37564|A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America|Ronald Takaki|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439467571l/37564._SY75_.jpg|37420] where Takaki regularly encountered people who automatically assumed him a foreigner based on his Asian appearance despite the fact that he was born in America and was a celebrated and accomplished PhD and professor at Berkeley. Kudos to Lin for incorporating this as a prominent aspect of the plot that requires the reader to confront some of their own assumptions about other people in their everyday life.
I also want to note that I enjoyed the author's writing style and use of punctuation or lack thereof in certain scenarios to conjure up different feelings/convey experiences for the main character.
Ok so who's going to adapt this into a film now? I'd be into it.