An Excess Male

July 10, 2017
In King’s thoughtful, heartbreaking debut, set in near-future Beijing, China’s one-child policy and cultural preference for boys have led to 40 million more men than women. Wei-guo, in his early 40s, is hoping to become part of a polyandrous “advanced family” while navigating a stifling society that considers him unnecessary. Leading his team at Strategic Games is no longer entirely fulfilling; he’s ready to fall in love. He’s thrilled to be matched with a family made up of the big, brash Hann; the socially awkward, brilliant Xiong-xin, aka XX; and, most importantly, the lovely May-ling. The narrative toggles among the main characters, offering insight into each. May-ling is overwhelmed by their rambunctious toddler son, BeiBei, and in love with Hann, even though he is secretly gay, or “willfully sterile.” XX and May-ling don’t really want to be married to each other. A scary twist in the third act keeps the pages turning. King expertly explores the myriad routes to family, hope, and love in a repressive country. Agent: David Fugate, LaunchBooks Literary.

August 1, 2017

Lee Wei-guo is one of the generation of Chinese men known as "the bounty," created by China's one-child policy and the longstanding preference in that culture for male children. Now there are 40 million men unable to find mates. A common solution is for women to take multiple husbands, and Wei-guo is hoping to wed May-ling, who is already married to brothers Hann and Xiong-xin. As Wei-guo and his matchmaker lobby hard to be chosen by May-ling, he learns more about their unusual family dynamic. This is a believable near-future vision of what could happen with China's growing gender imbalance. The relationships between the brothers and their shared spouse are interesting, although it says something about the desperation of middle-aged men like Wei-guo, that he is willing to take on their many issues in order to become part of a family. VERDICT This dystopian debut doesn't quite maintain momentum for the entire novel, seeming more suited for a short story.--MM

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017
In her provocative debut, King imagines a world in which China's One Child Policy has created a dystopian future of longing, inequality, and constant surveillance.At 40, Lee Wei-guo is a well-established physical trainer. He's even been "voted one of Beijing's top master personal trainers the last five years in a row by The Worldly Bachelor." Like the other men he knows, Wei-guo longs for the companionship of marriage, but China's One Child Policy and preference for male children has created a future in which it's notoriously difficult--and expensive--for men to marry. Women are allowed to take multiple husbands to try and breed more daughters, an authoritarian State has criminalized homosexuality and mental illness, and men are provided with State-regulated outlets for both pleasure and aggression. But when Wei-guo meets Wu May-ling through an expensive matchmaker, he intuits that she and her Advanced family may be the ticket to his future happiness. Despite his growing connection with May-ling and her two husbands, brothers Hann and XX, Wei-guo's hopes for a straightforward marriage contract are thrown into chaos when a battle in the Strategic Games turns unexpectedly deadly. Can Wei-guo outsmart the State-sponsored violence that has rendered men like him so dispensable? Told in alternating viewpoints, King's novel takes its cues from classic sci-fi dystopias, from The Handmaid's Tale to Ender's Game, to demonstrate the repressive control mechanisms already at work in everyday life. An intelligent, incisive commentary on how love survives--or doesn't--under the heel of the State.

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August 1, 2017
Poisoned by years of a cultural preference for sons, China's Communist government has been forced to reinvent family dynamics to cope with its lack of female citizens. Households are created under contracts and consist of up to three husbands for every one wife. Millions of unmarried men spend their lifetime saving up a dowry to patriotically join or begin a marriage of their own, but even with these new arrangements, strict conservative values remain the norm. Homosexuality and intellectual disability are considered taboo and treated with forced rehabilitation, relationships outside of marriage are illegal, and any form of resistance is met with public humiliation. Despite this extreme pressure, Wei-guo feels destined to join a household as an upstanding, successful citizen at almost any cost. He and his fathers have saved a dowry, but the internal problems plaguing the household Wei-guo is matched with may be too steep a price to pay for marriage. King imagines a frightening reality, in which forced cultural norms run counter to basic human rights, leaving readers exceedingly uncomfortable with its feasibility.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)