All stories of forbidden love are fetching. We empathize with the star-crossedness of it all, marvel at the ways that passion finds to prevail and cheer the lovers or lament with them, depending upon the outcome.
Central to Take Me Home is the friendship between Miss Addie and Wing Lee. Although they care for each other, in Leung's rendition, it is utterly passionless. Since a child is conceived, the reader must fill in the blanks. Telling that fact isn't really a spoiler because it is telegraphed almost from Addie and Wing's first meeting. They are destined to understand one another in a way neither has experienced before.
The story is set in 1880s Wyoming, and Leung has re-created the warp and woof of the territory with faithful clarity. It is a hard, unforgiving life and landscape in the aptly named coal-mining town of Dire. Miss Addie goes there to join her brother, Tommy, a homesteader who has chosen a piece of property where nothing will grow. She stayed behind in Kentucky to take care of their drunken father, now deceased, after her mother abandoned the family. Once her obligation ended, she set out for the West and her beloved brother.
Much of what she has been told about the territory involves the "Celestials," a term used to describe Chinese emigrants to the United States in the 19th century. The Union Pacific Railroad brought them to Wyoming to work the coal mines, and the prejudice against them, based on total ignorance of their culture, reduces them to a status lower than animals. They are believed to eat children, among other accusations.
Tommy is forced to work the mines because of his failed homestead. Addie meets Wing Lee while at the mine to see Tommy. Against all odds, they strike up a business partnership--he is a mine cook, she is a good shot and game is plentiful. Done deal, despite the misgivings of everyone other than Addie and Wing.
Tommy has "arranged" for Addie to marry a Finn, Muuk by name, who is barely conversant in any language. Addie has determined never to marry, but in the fullness of time--who knows why?--she marries Muuk and finds him unwilling to consummate the marriage. Thereby hangs a tale.
The story begins 40 years after the Chinese were run out of town during the Wyoming Massacre, an actual event that took place in 1885. Miss Addie is brought back to Dire to say farewell to Ah Cheong, an old Chinese man who survived the massacre. Who knows why she is summoned back and he was not killed? Addie ran out on her husband, fled to California and has raised oranges ever since. Now, she will face Muuk and come to a reckoning about that time long ago. What about Wing and the child? That would be telling.--Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Despite various lacunae in the telling, Brian Leung has crafted an indelible picture of the Wyoming Territory and two unlikely lovers.