A snowy Christmas eve, when the Family Chao’s dog Alf disappears, is when things finally completely unravel for Leo and Minnie Chao and their three sons, William, Ming and James. Leo’s murder, which drives much of the plot, happens exactly at the halfway point. While the crime is intriguing, the novel’s focus on the forcedly insular Chao family, struggling to make it in an all-white Wisconsin town, is the real highlight. The otherization of the Chaos–Chang refers to the children’s fable, The Five Chinese Brothers, as an analogous situation–combined with classic relationship dysfunction, turns out to be a volatile combination.
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