An Excess Male

I enjoyed this book a great deal. I found it loving and hateful, sad and heart-warming.

Set in a China of the near-future, this novel extrapolates on current conditions in China. Two factors have already had a huge effect on Chinese childbirth. First: While a segment of the Chinese population is very well to do, the large majority works desperately hard to survive and feed their families. Most pray for sons in order to have someone to feed them when they are no longer able to work themselves. Then to combat over-population, China passed a one-child per family policy. The large fines assessed for a second pregnancy are completely affordable for the well-to-do and utterly ruinous for the majority. So prayers for sons became more desperate. Second, modern science made possible the determination of gender in a fetus. Allowed only one child and needing sons, thousands upon thousands of female fetuses have been aborted. This novel looks to the near-future when men enormously outnumber women in the population. Despite the legalization of polyandry, one quarter of the men in China have no hope for wife or family.

King explores this issue by focusing on one family, a family that is already living on the edge and relying on secrecy just to survive, and one man’s hopes for marrying into it. Along the way she also takes on China’s views about homosexuality and those who are mentally different from the only acceptable norm. Her characters are absolutely credible and still completely appealing. And I found the entire working out of the plot almost inevitable given just who these people are.

Please don’t mistake me, however. This book is much more than a treatise on Chinese policies. It is a human and humane story of appealing people doing their very best to create the lives they need. I recommend it to all adults.

MUST-READ FOR EVERYONE! This is a book that everyone living in this age should read. The most pertinent questions and issues of the modern age, and the looming obstacles we have to face – all of them are in this book. Cybersecurity, social equality and human rights, protection of the rights of queer and disabled people, abusive and overly controlling government, the loss of human privacy and rights to self and life – the only thing missing from this book is climate change. And King illustrates all these themes in one broad, masterful, incredible stroke through the eyes of our four heroes: Wei-guo (For Country), Hann (like Han people), XX/Xiong-Xin (sounds like brave/courageous heart to me) and Mei-ling. It’s so easy to fall in love with all four of them the way they fall in love with each other. Watching them connect with each other and forge precious emotional connections is so rewarding, and watching them struggle through these problems and still hold fast to each other is also amazing. I’m glad the story ended on a good note, even if not a full happy ending. But the story is tinged with hope; hope and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. This is one of the best books I have ever read and will ever read in this lifetime.

Other reviewers talk about the plot so there’s no need to go into that but…..this is a very realistic look at the unintended consequences of China’s 1 child policy. Since men wanted sons, the girl children were not valued and I remember reading, not in this book but an outside article, that under China’s one child policy fathers left their baby girls outside to die of exposure so that they could still try again for a boy. Horrifying but probably true since if you keep up with such things, there will be reportedly about 30 million men of marriage age who will not find wives. You can’t have just boys, fathers, there won’t be any girls born for those boys to marry! So in this story, of course, the worst has happened. But the relationships and characters are the stars of this book. Flawed but realistic people just trying to make a life for themselves and not draw the attention of authorities. I found this to be one of the most unique and though-provoking books I’ve read in a long long time. Thank you Maggie Shen King!

This is a truly amazing book, about a possible solution to the excess men problem that China has, all in a context of China’s government being well, ah, China’s government, though with new tools (one developed by one of the protagonists who did not think about all the implications) for oppression and control. I love the side details and the excellent worldbuilding, but I adore the characters and wish them all well, even though the end of the book doesn’t seem to offer a happy future for at least one of them. Please write more books!

This book stayed with me for days and I kept on thinking about the main characters. Almost all of them are victims of oppression and governmental intervention into the most private aspects of family life. They also dont mind to oppress other family members, manipulating them and controlling their privacy. I had very mixed feelings about Hann who wanted freedom and promiscuity in his homosexuality and married life with wife and child. He absolutely didnt care of robbing his wife of meaningful, loving relationship with a partner capable of living and cherishing her. This relationship was pretty doomed from the start. The government control over citizens considered less then and blatant disregard of their rights, lives and privacy was horrific. Could that be Chinas future with their huge deficit of female segment of population?

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