THE MANOR OF DREAMS, by Christina Li
The children’s and young adult author Christina Li’s first foray into adult literature, “The Manor of Dreams,” begins with a contested will. It’s 2024, and Vivian Yin, a once-celebrated, Oscar-winning Chinese actress, has died. Her obituaries and tributes are few and brief. After decades spent isolating in her crumbling Los Angeles mansion, Yin Manor, Vivian’s legacy has been forgotten. Her husband is dead, and her daughters and granddaughter are estranged.
The daughters, Lucille and Rennie, are relying on the inheritance of the decaying but still valuable mansion to help them personally and financially. But, while seated at Vivian’s grand dining room table with a lawyer, they learn they will not be the beneficiaries of the estate. Yin Manor has been bequeathed to Elaine Deng, the daughter of the mansion’s longtime housekeeper and gardener.
Immediately suspecting coercion, or something even more sinister, Lucille, Rennie and Lucille’s daughter, Madeline, insist on a week inside Yin Manor to investigate Vivian’s final days and find a lawful claim to the mansion. Elaine, anxious not to lose the property, agrees on two conditions: that she and her daughter, Nora, join them in the house and that, once the week is finished, the Yin family “never contest the will or contact us again.” Rennie and Lucille agree — even though, of course, it is under false pretenses.
“The Manor of Dreams” is ambitious. It’s written in dueling timelines, covers three generations and features an ensemble of disparate characters. It explores two forbidden love stories and includes some malevolent supernatural phenomena. Li uses all of these elements to begin a promising conversation about the corrupting power of money, the realities of the American dream, the profound impact of family and the slow poison of secrecy.
The challenge, however, is that Li is so prescriptive it suggests a lack of trust in her readers. Obvious plot devices and character arcs are underscored with overdetermined rhetorical questions. These overtly highlight a detail or a critique, as if Li doesn’t believe the textures and nuances of a scene are clear enough on their own. Early in the novel, with the stakes made clear, we don’t need Madeline asking, “What had led her grandmother to become such a recluse that she avoided her own family?” to wonder this ourselves. Key themes are laid out to us in aphorisms: “Maybe we’re all haunted by different things.” Even the novel’s title is elucidated in a scene where Vivian stands on her once grand terrace, reflecting on her life: “She was going to build a house that was big enough for their dreams.”
In addition to the inheritance and familial drama, the Yin and Deng families are confronted with unsettling supernatural incidents — including possessed vines, bloody roses, haunted mirrors, inexplicable dirt and violent quakes. These paranormal elements are introduced early into the novel with little payoff until the conclusion. Rather than, perhaps, externalize inner conflict or convey a character’s psychological state or enrich the plot, these moments are shirked off and left undiscussed for much of the novel. When it finally becomes clear what — or who — is behind these hauntings, the effect has already been deadened from such little integration with the rest of the plot.
The conceit behind “The Manor of Dreams” is rich and enticing, but the novel never really comes together. There is just so much here — so many characters, relationships, secrets, and lots of plot and exposition — that it begins to feel relentless and overcrowded. None of Li’s great ideas have adequate space to satisfyingly break through.
Ultimately, reading the novel feels like walking through the ruined garden behind Yin Manor: If you don’t cut the stems all the way back, the flowers won’t have the opportunity to bloom.
THE MANOR OF DREAMS | By Christina Li | Avid Reader Press | 336 pp. | $28.99
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