THE MONEY DRAGON

Chun’s debut—part novel, part biography—tells the life of her great-grandfather, a legendary Chinese merchant who moved to Hawaii in 1876 and became one of the islands’ richest men.

The Pacific Ocean was one of the world’s great crossroads in the 19th century, a busy place on which the ambitions of four continents intersected day by day. Its transport of goods and cargoes produced one of the greatest markets the world has ever known, with vast fortunes being made by the smart, the lucky, and the aggressive—qualities possessed in abundance by Lau Ah Leong. The son of a gambler, he became homeless when his father lost the family estate on a bad wager. Cast into the streets while still a boy, he and his father lived first by begging, then by trading—and of necessity the young Leong learned how to drive a good bargain. Eventually he settled in Honolulu, but he kept strong business ties (and a magnificent country estate) in China and made good use of such connections to expand his import-export concerns into a financial empire. The story here is narrated by Leong’s daughter-in-law Phoenix, a headstrong, well-educated girl from a prominent family in Singapore. Raised by her grandfather after her father’s death, Phoenix managed her family’s estate until her marriage to Tat-tung at 17—practically an old maid by the standards of the time. As an outsider, she saw Tat-tung’s family without sentimentality or nostalgia, finding herself alternately fascinated and horrified by her father-in-law’s headstrong, self-centered brilliance and ambition. As in many family epics, the cast list is long and confusing (especially to readers unfamiliar with Chinese names), but the focus stays on Leong—early hardships, success, and then struggles with the Americans of Hawaii and the Communists of China, etc.—who remains Chun’s most interesting character.

Sometimes disjointed and rambling, but nevertheless a kind of exotic Dallas: lurid, two-dimensional, fast-paced—and utterly addictive.