The Double Life of Benson Yu

 by Kevin Chong

The author of this book is a BC prof who has or is teaching at UBC Okanagan.

It is a strange book, I am not sure what to make of it.  The book starts out with Benson Yu, a teenager, living with his grandmother in chinatown.  Benson's mother had died and his father is described as a good for nothing.  

Benson has an aunt he is close to but she goes on tour with her band.  While she is away Benson's grandmother dies and Benson is on his own. He tries to contact his aunt and has difficulty.  When he does finally reach her she says she can't come home til the tour is over.  Benson is on his own with no food and money.  He goes to school for awhile but when his grades start to drop and his teacher asks to see his grandmother he stops going to school.  A social worker comes to try to find him but Benson hides.  He eventually goes to a neighbour, a man with mental health issue who practices martial arts and thinks he is a Japanese  ninja or something like that.  When their are practicing martial arts the man, who has taken Benson to live with him, accidentally breaks Benson's nose.

The book then skips to twenty years into the future.  Benson is the same age as before and is living with his father, who is a part time university lecturer, married to a more successful academic.  The couple have a young daughter.  Benson's step mother welcomes him and takes him shopping for clothes. His father is a lot more reserved.  He has  drinking problem and his wife decides to leave him.

Benson finds out his father is famous for a cartoon/animee book or series that he wrote about a lizard who learns martia arts.  Benson and his dad practice martia arts.  His father is quite hard on him and Benson gets a lot of bruises.  Benson's father receives communication from the man who was his martial arts teacher, a man who it seems sexually abused him.  The man wants money as he thinks he is the inspiration for the comic books.  Benson's father refuses.  At the end of the book the man who took Benson in, in the past, shows up and kills Benson's father and is jailed or hospitalized as a result.

I am not sure what to make of this book, why the time jump?  There is a parallel with Benson and his father both having martial arts teachers but Benson's did not sexually abuse him and ended up saving him from his father.  Did jumping into the future somehow allow Benson come to terms with is useless absent father by making him more normal. But why did Benson's teacher have to come to kill the father, was he  threat to Benson.

Frankenstein

 by Mary Shellley

I read the book at the recommendation of Christian.  I found the first part of the book really slow to get started.  It starts with a young man, on an exploration mission in a ship writing to his sister, writing letters to his sister about a man they rescue and the story he tells.

The book eventually gets around to describe the happy life of Victor Frankenstein, including a girl adopted into his family.  As a young man he get interested in some strange pseudo science and ideas.  When he goes away to university his interests are discounted by the profs.  He studies and eventually gets interested in trying to create a human and he is able to do so.  He is terrified of the huge ugly creature he has created and falls into sickness.  The creature disappears.

Eventually a friend of his comes to him and nurses him back to health.   The man is saddened to learn that his young brother has been killed.  He later finds out that it was his creature who killed the brother.  The creature is angry that the man is appalled by his existence.  The creature evenutally finds shelter in a barn attached to a house.  By watching and listening to the family, a blind father and his two children, the creature learns the language.  He watches them for months and one day decides to drop in to see the father.  When the children return they are shocked at the monsters appearance and he runs away.  The family decide to leave their rental accommodation and after they leave the monster burns the house down.

He eventually reconncts with Frankenstein and asks him to create a woman companion for him.  If he is rejected by society because of his appearance at least he would have a companion.  He says that if Frankenstein doesn't do this he will harm his family.  Frankenstein initially refuses but finally agrees.  He goes away to an island and starts to work on a mate but can't do it.  Shortly after a body is found near the island, it is the body of Frankenstein's best friend.  Frankenstein is arrested and jailed for the murder.  

He evetually gets out of jail and marries the woman who was adopted into his family. They set off on their honeymoon and his bride is murdered on their wedding night by the monster.  The monster had hinted at this.

The man then sets off to find the monster and kill him which swings back to the start of the book.

The book certainly wasn't like movies about Frankenstein.  The book was very sympathetic towards the creature.  He was lonely, sad that he was rejected by people.  All he wanted was to be loved.  He seemed to be a thoughtful being and only committed his violence because of his frustration at being rejected.

The Jazz Club Spy

 by Roberta Rich

This is the story of a Russian emigrant to the U.S.  Members of her family were killed by cossacks in Russia and her mother was raped by one of the cossacks.  The family fled to the U.S.  The main character Giddy is working as a cigarette girl in a club but longs to open her own custom makeup store.  

One day while she is riding a bus she sees a man she thinks was the cossack who tried to kill her.  She wants revenge.  She goes to the immigration office at Ellis Island? and meets an immigration official.  When she tells the man who she thinks this man is he agrees to do some checking into records as the cossacks are not desirable immigrants.

They are able to identify the name of the man and the girl is "hired" by the official to try to track the man down as they think he may be involved in some political activities.  The girl is able to find him, even though a detective has not been able to do so.  The girl eventually meets the man's pregnant wife, they already have one child.

The man finds out she is looking for him and breaks into her home one night.  He tells her he is not the one who raped her mother or killed her family members.  She doesn't know whether to believe him or not.  She does find out that he may be involved in a plot to kill a Soviet official who is scheduled to come to the U.S.  With the money she receives from the U.S. official the girl is able to open her shop.

The girl and the government official start having an affair and the girl becomes pregnant.  The official wants her to have an abortion and he agrees to pay for it.  The girl insists she wants to meet a different govt official. Her lover tells her the man is not to be trusted but agees to introduce them at the man's summer home, while she is recovering from her abortion.  She had hoped the man would marry her but finds out he is already married with a family.

The story then takes several twists.  The girl meets her father who was kicked out by her mother.  She finds out that her sister didn't die in Russia but was rather "sold" to a local rich person.  She finds out her younger brother who she has great hopes for is actually a product of her mother's rape.  He overhears the conversation and it helps everyone understand why the mother was so finding it so hard to love him.  It turns out the govt official is actually a fascist and anti-semite who is hiring the Russian cossack to kill the soviet visitor.  The girl is of course shocked at this news and risks her life to thwart the plot.  

It was an interesting story that kept you wondering what was going on.  The author is a BC writer.