Disappearing Moon Cafe

Published in 1990, Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe won the 1990 City of Vancouver Book Award and was a finalist in the 1990 Governor General's Award. The novel came to my attention earlier this year when it was part of a plagiarism suit against Ling Zhang, author of the multi-continent success Gold Mountain Blues, published in 2011.

Ms. Zhang is accused of plagiarizing from Disappearing Moon Cafe, and three other novels written by Chinese-Canadian authors about the Chinese-Canadian immigrant experience. This month, I will be reading all four novels mentioned in the plagiarism lawsuit, as well Ms. Zhang's Gold Mountain Blues and forming my own conclusion.

Disappearing Moon Cafe is set primarily in Vancouver's Chinatown and tells the story of the affluent Wong family. The Wongs have almost has many secrets as they have money. Almost all of the members have secrets to keep in order to protect the family name and reputation.

Wong family secrets:

• Wong Gwei Chang is the patriarch of the family, has the most well kept secret - before marrying his wife, Lee Mui Lan, he married, and fathered a child with a Native Indian woman.
• Desperate for a grandchild, Lee Mui Lan, pays a waitress from the family's Disappearing Moon Cafe to act as a Concubine and bear a child for her son, Wong Choy Fuk. This secret is kept from her husband but is a well known "secret" in Chinatown.
• After six months of trying to impregnate the waitress, Wong Choy Fuk tells her to get pregnant by another man and pass the child off as his.
• Wong Choy Fuk's wife, Chan Fong Mei, tired of being childless after five years of marriage and upset about her husband's relationship with the waitress, quietly begins an affair of her own with Wong Ting An. Unknown to everyone, Wong Ting An is the son of Wong Gwei Chang and his first wife. (Wong Ting An never met his father, he was raised until the age of 12 by his adopted Chinese grandfather.) Chan Fong Mei has two daughters and a son with Wong Ting An and passes them all off as her husband's kids.

When Chan Fong Mei's daughters come of age and begin romantic relationships with other young people in Chinatown, the family's secrets start to unravel as the parents try to stop their kids from entering incestuous relationships. The consequences of the many secrets turn deadly.

The story is narrated by Kae Ying Woo, Chan Fong Mei's granddaughter.

This story contains so many plot twists and revelations, one can't help but be riveted.

4/5