#tom lin

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Babylon, South Dakota: A Novel

By Tom Lin.

[engamesfilmdiary]

Xiao Yan yu wu Ai Li

Tom Lin

2024

/

Pięć smaków 2025

8

14.11.25

[mthollowell-writes]

Judging The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu: A Book Review

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is a fascinating weird western which serves vengeful violence alongside lyrical prose detailing the natural majesty of the Old West.

Ming Tsu is a Chinese American assassin on a mission to seek vengeance on the men who ambushed him and stole him away from his true love, Ada. After freeing himself from his sentence of laying tracks for the Central Pacific rails, he makes his way back to Sacramento, taking out his enemies along his trek. Along the way, he picks up an old blind clairvoyant and runs into a traveling troupe of performers who can perform strange miracles on their way to Reno. But trouble is never far on their heels with a bounty on Ming’s head.

I’ll be honest: I haven't read or watch many westerns. I’m not sure this book exactly qualifies as a Western in the traditional sense. Traditionally, their main characters may be morally gray but their actions are always framed as justified. There is a right and a wrong side in the strange world of the frontier, and the protagonist is usually on the right side of that line. That isn’t so clear cut in this book—at least in how I interpreted it. Everyone is painted in that gray brush, which I find is more true to how the West was. How most of human history truly is. Though I found myself rooting for Ming, I also found myself questioning him as he starts to question himself the further along his journey he goes. If it wasn’t obvious, one of the things I found most compelling about this book was its characters. Another is the long winding sentences that force you to slow down and really take in what you’re reading. To pay attention to how the sunlight shifts on the wide plain to the careful actions of the characters as they build their fire and travel along. The touches of the supernatural throughout seem both out of place and of its time. Taking on the perspective of a Chinese American character who was part of the essential fabric of the people who built the US—both seen and unseen, a perceived menace and a tool—was something I also really appreciated. I enjoyed the story for what it was and wholeheartedly recommend it for the Western reader who wants something a little weird and out of bounds.

[mthollowell-writes]

“For a time it had ceased to trouble him to kill.”

- Tom Lin, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu

[lobster-tales]

Books Read in 2023:

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

“To sing at all is to labor, and it is only by labor that men living recall the shadows of men passed. This is what it means to remember.” At this the prophet turned and was swallowed up by the darkness.

[writerswritecompany]

Quotable – Tom Lin

Read more about the author here

[cinemaronin]

Happy Birthday 林書宇 Tom Lin

[closetcellist]

My baby boy