Drama is on menu in ‘Chinese Restaurant’
If you’ve worked in a restaurant you know the “family meal” tradition, a gathering for staff where waiters fill up and learn the specials ahead of a long shift.
The truism of workers as family resonates in deep and distressing ways throughout Lillian Li’s action-packed debut novel, “Number One Chinese Restaurant” (Henry Holt).
At the Beijing Duck House in Maryland, the specials include intricately carved duck, mob-connected investors and a brotherly rivalry that has been simmering for years.
Jimmy Han has toiled his entire life at the Duck House, founded by his Chinese immigrant father, working his way up from cook, to front of house, to co-owner with his brother, Johnny. But when Jimmy hatches a secret plan to close the Duck House and open an upscale venue in posh Georgetown, painful conflicts from the past break open to threaten his livelihood, his relationship with his mother and his hard-won sobriety.
A dark figure behind the machinations of money and favors is Uncle Pang, who deals in violence and has the Han family in his grip. While the central conflict is Jimmy’s, the novel also develops intertwined stories of the restaurant’s other workers such as Nan, Jimmy’s right-hand manager, who struggles to balance long hours on her feet while caring for a troubled teenage son as a single mother.
There’s also Ah-Jack, a lifer in the Chinese restaurant industry, whose body has been wrecked by physical labor combined with encroaching diabetes. When Nan’s son Pat grows too close to the shadowy Uncle Pang, an act of violence rocks everyone involved with the restaurant.
Li shines in portraying lives shaped by work in this industry — what it feels like to be spattered by hot oil, or pained by mandatory high heels, or diminished by customer demands, day in and day out.
Characters find joy in small moments that often revolve around food or the solace of a single shift drink. Or in humor: “Annie cracked a joke about how every day at a Chinese restaurant was bring-yourkid-to-work day.” When this younger generation – Annie and Pat – get jobs at the Duck House, a complex blend of fear and pride fills their parents, who know the toll a restaurant life takes.
One of the loveliest parts of the novel is the long intimacy between co-workers Nan and Ah-Jack, who cover for one another, massage each other’s twisted feet, and savor late-night meals at a favorite hot-pot place. The delicate details of their love for one another create some of the strongest scenes.
At first, the many characters can cause a bit of confusion. And the novel’s emotional pitch — with so many crises and tensions piling up one after another — can feel strained.
But overall, “Number One Chinese Restaurant” rewards readers with a compelling family story about love, work and what it means to serve.