Most of us who venture into the wild for fun and fulfillment can do so with a belief that, even if we鈥檙e tested, everything will turn out alright in the end. In Chia-Chia Lin鈥檚 debut novel听, a Taiwanese American family struggles to eke out a life on the outskirts of Anchorage鈥攁nd part of what makes the story so gripping is the lack of any underlying sense that things will turn out alright.

When the family moved听to Anchorage, it was听into a听creaky house in an empty cul-de-sac where听the听father had hoped听a neighborhood would听take root and a middle-class life could thrive. Instead, amid听the isolation that many immigrants face, life has become a series of 鈥渟hould haves.鈥� Once a proud engineer, the father resorts to plumbing and odd jobs, leaving his resourceful and increasingly resentful wife with the burden of keeping four children clothed, fed, and safe on the edges of the south-central Alaskan wilderness. Through the eyes of the book鈥檚 narrator, Gavin, we quickly understand that the family lives a threatened existence. When Gavin falls seriously ill at age ten, he awakens days later in a fog to learn he鈥檚 had meningitis听and his four-year-old sister, Ruby, has died from it. The father is later sued over shoddy work on a water well听that resulted in the poisoning of a customer鈥檚 son. He lapses into a state of abject passivity.

As Gavin says of his family: 鈥淥ur aliveness was precarious.鈥�

It鈥檚 from this teetering state that The Unpassing sets in motion a complicated and refreshingly unromantic family drama. While Gavin and his siblings try to go about the business of being kids, exploring the forest at their doorstep and making friends with distant neighbors, the forces of grief and dysfunction tear at the fabric of the household. The novel鈥檚 tension mounts like accumulating snow on the strained roof.

The drama plays out against a set of intriguing, often menacing landscapes鈥攖he shadowy backyard spruce forest, brooding coastal inlets, the Kenai River glimmering with silver salmon. One of the immediate pleasures of Lin鈥檚 writing is the听heightened perception it brings to these environments. While it鈥檚 actually adult Gavin who鈥檚 narrating the story in retrospect, we鈥檙e effectively experiencing the world through ten-year-old Gavin鈥檚 senses. In one especially vivid scene, he听and his mother encounter a beluga whale stranded on a treacherous tidal flat. Beneath their feet, the cool, wet silt is 鈥渞aw batter shaken inside a pan.鈥�听The whale鈥檚 exposed white flesh is 鈥渟oft, like a ripe peach,鈥� and its extended forehead and mouth shape 鈥渁 pained smile鈥攁s though we鈥檇 asked, 鈥楽houldn鈥檛 you be in the water?鈥欌�� There鈥檚 a slow drip of delicious, tactile detail that not only establishes a rich scene but reveals clues about Gavin鈥檚 inner state.

Full disclosure:听I went to college with Chia-Chia Lin, so after I emerged from The Unpassing鈥檚 spell, I caught up with her and asked, among other things, how she channeled the experience of a child.

Lin, who grew up in a family of Taiwanese immigrants in various cities on the East Coast, first visited Alaska听nearly 15 years ago for an internship at the attorney general鈥檚 office in Anchorage. In a dying Subaru, she spent weekends exploring the Chugach Mountains and beyond. She says she found herself wide-eyed.听鈥淐hildren experience the world so dramatically and fully. They鈥檙e really in touch with their senses. As an outsider, I experienced Alaska at a different, heightened level, the way a child would,鈥� she told me.听鈥淚nsiders have more access to knowledge, but outsiders in a place have access to their reactions鈥攖o newness.鈥�

The allure of the wilderness in听The Unpassing听is not only in its newness,听though. It鈥檚 also that it鈥檚 unknowable, a source of irreducible mystery. Lin said that while writing the novel, she drew inspiration in some small but meaningful way from a news story about a Japanese boy who鈥檇 gone missing in the听woods. 鈥淗e was too young to explain what had happened to him in the few days he鈥檇 spent alone. But even when you鈥檙e an adult, it鈥檚 hard to describe what happens to you in the woods鈥攈ow they change you.鈥澨鼳s she was telling me this, I couldn鈥檛 help but think of the moment in the book when Gavin reflects on his wild backyard with a sort of naive wisdom: 鈥�The truth was, we didn鈥檛 know the woods at all. We only knew the path. Once you stepped off it, there was no telling what you鈥檇 find.鈥�

It鈥檚 worth noting that for all the natural threats that loom for Gavin and his family鈥攍ike man-swallowing mudflats, tree-thrashing moose, and bears听descending from the Chugach Mountains鈥攁t its core, the novel doesn鈥檛 lean too hard on timeworn ideas of the wilderness as a proving ground of one鈥檚 prowess or will to survive. Lin laughs recalling that she forbade her publisher from putting a bear on the book鈥檚 cover.听

What鈥檚 more menacing鈥攁nd moving鈥攊n听The Unpassing听is the way the wilderness creeps into house and home, and the way it leads characters astray from one another. First, tiny fungi sprout in the dank bathroom. Later, squirrels take up in the attic, and rain leaks through the ceiling. As the novel builds toward听a scene of harrowing dysfunction and confrontation, the wilderness comes to reflect the unforgiving emotional terrain that family members听are trying to navigate鈥攁nd are not guaranteed to emerge from.听(Lin says, 鈥淭here鈥檚 nowhere as wild as our families.鈥�)

To be fair, it鈥檚 not all bleak in the cul-de-sac on the edge of the woods. In moments when the kids snuggle in bed, sharing an illicit candy bar, or when curious, caring neighbors reach out, there is warmth and optimism, rendered with the kind of understatement that reverberates. There are funny moments, too, usually involving Gavin鈥檚 tenacious, unfiltered mother (when we meet her, she鈥檚 playing dead to test her children鈥檚 reactions).

At its heart,听The Unpassing听is about newcomers striving in the margins between civilization and the forest for a basic sense of security that others have long taken for granted. It鈥檚 a kind of modern pioneer story, stripped of sentimentality but pulsating with both love and dread for the wilderness.

The post 鈥楾he Unpassing鈥� Is a Different Kind of Wilderness Book appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.