SUNBIRTH, by An Yu
What happens to us after an abandonment? And what if we’re abandoned not only by the adults who help us grow, but also by the natural forces we rely on to live? An Yu’s evocative third novel, “Sunbirth,” explores these questions in a speculative landscape that is memorably vibrant despite a mounting sense of loss.
In Yu’s world, the sun is disappearing bit by bit over a period of many years. No one knows how much of it will go or when. The people in the town of Five Poems Lake have learned to survive; a person can still buy broccoli on occasion, but it’s wan and pricey. The unnamed narrator, a young woman, has taken over the family pharmacy after her grandfather died, and supplies local residents with traditional remedies when she can: an expensive bird’s nest to boil for one customer, herbs for another.
Resources grow scarce, but there are still basketballs to play with, TV shows to watch and a thriving camellia plant over the urn containing the narrator’s father, who died mysteriously years earlier and was a rock of support for the family.
Pressures intensify as the sun continues to diminish. In a thrilling and unexpected plot turn, citizens begin transforming, their heads swallowed by radiance: “I saw the outline of his face before a bright light pushed itself out of his open mouth.” It’s a startling but convincingly written shift in the story. The changed beings, called Beacons by the town, evoke the sun while not being the sun, hot and bright without nourishing anything, and it’s unclear how much of the human is left once they transform.
As the narrator, her sister and a family friend negotiate this frightening world, they discover some painful truths about the past, unearthing long-buried secrets. We also spend time in a flashback with the narrator’s father, Dong Yiyao, a respected police officer who tries to do right by others, even if he fails.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post The Sun Is Slowly Disappearing in This Haunting Novel appeared first on New York Times.
