USA TODAY International Edition
‘Number One Chinese Restaurant’ serves drama
If you’ve worked in a restaurant you know the “family meal” tradition, a pre-service 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, 304 pp., ★★★☆).
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 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 with 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 and 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 service industry – what it feels like to be spattered by hot oil, or pained by mandatory high heels, or diminished by customer demands.
Characters find joy in small moments that often revolve around food or the solace of a single shift drink.
One of the loveliest parts of the novel is the long intimacy between coworkers Nan and Ah-Jack, who cover for each other, massage each other’s twisted feet and savor late-night meals at a favorite hot-pot place.
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 “Number One Chinese Restaurant” rewards readers with a compelling family story about love, work and what it means to serve.