Ghosts, demons and the mysterious Deathlily
“Happy Birthday!” — the first story in Lindsay Wong’s debut short-story collection “Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality” — sets the tone for the stories to follow.
Mrs. Goh has offered her two adult children, Johnny and Amy, $5,000 each if they will return to Hong Kong to celebrate their father’s 65th birthday dinner, “for a maximum of fortyeight hours and two other meals, preferably dim sum, and maybe a matinee of ‘The Magic Flute’ with sloppy Cantonese subtitles.”
What begins as a straightforward, if highly fraught and definitively dysfunctional family reunion takes an unexpected turn, however, when Mr. Goh becomes possessed by the spirit of Mimi, the “exotic dancer” whom he had murdered two days earlier.
As Mimi explains, “Two nights ago, before she woke up in her murderer’s body, Mimi Lu, bendy exotic dancer, rated Stripper Supreme on Chinese Yelp, said that she was finishing her shift at Adam’s Apple (3.5 stars) when Mr. Goh approached her in the parking lot and offered her $1,500 for sex, which was considered very cheap. When she asked for more money, he throttled her to death, smashed a few of her good teeth, and then dismembered her with an X-Acto knife.”
The family reunion (with unexpected guest) is a deeply disturbing and utterly delightful (for the reader, at any rate) night as Mimi holds them prisoner, the tone blurring between the horrific, the slapstick and the archly funny. Mrs. Goh, for example, suspended near the ceiling by “Mr. Goh/Mimi,” takes stock of her life and her relationship with her husband. “Was Mr. Goh a serial killer? God, she didn’t know. He couldn’t even keep track of his clothes or medical appointments — where would all the evidence go?” (The reader soon finds the answer to that question, by the way.)
Wong has crafted, over the 13 stories in “Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality,” a kaleidoscopic experience not only of Chinese and immigrant culture, but an ongoing examination of contemporary mores and values. For example, in the title story, reporters cover the eating of the Night Blooming Deathlily, “the strangest plant in all of China … People who seek immortality come to China to consume the plant. It’s like gambling in Las Vegas — everyone loses.”
The eating of the deathlily has become a highly rated spectator event, broadcast live around the world. That the story is narrated by the only known survivor of the deathlily, “the only one who ate enough flowers to achieve immortality,” adds both the story’s historical context and lends an air of pathos to the affair, along with a questioning of the desire for immortality itself.
In “Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality,” Wong, who was born in Vancouver but now lives in Winnipeg, is able to cast her imaginative vision widely while incorporating elements of magic realism, folklore, mythology and the expected ghosts and demons. The result is a collection that is disturbing in places but, more importantly, dazzling and absolutely delightful.