By TASH AW
Reviewed by BRITTA STROMEYER
Readers familiar with Tash Aw know that the power of Aw’s writing lies in the intricate layering of complex themes, brought to life through nuanced characters. His latest novel, The South, the first of a four-part saga, is no exception. It is an ambitious portrayal of a family navigating profound transformation and the complexities of identity and belonging within Malaysia’s rich and challenging political context of the late 1990s.
Following his grandfather’s passing, sixteen-year-old Jay journeys southward with his family to inspect their inherited failing farm. Blighted trees and drought-stricken fields greet them upon arrival. Told in rotating third- and first-person perspectives over a few weeks, the novel introduces Jay, his mother Sui, and farm manager Fong as they grapple with identity and belonging within fractured family dynamics. The novel, both broad in its scope and delicate in its intimacy, explores the repercussions when personal lives intersect with wider societal currents. It unfolds with a quiet yet remarkable sense of pacing, each moment carefully weighted, drawing the reader deeper into the rich inner lives of its characters.
From the outset, the story reveals a family that is “not the kind of family to express pain of any kind, believing that discussing difficult matters would make them worse.” Jay’s parents traverse a strained marriage, his sisters harbor a weary cynicism, and Jay himself wrestles with a deep-seated sensation of not being enough as he awakens to emerging homosexual longings and a growing sense of separation from his family: “There had been a lot of talk in recent months about my growing up, but no one could really explain to me what that process involved. There was the question of my lacklustre studies, the reports from other parents in the neighbourhood of changes in my behaviour: my timidity, the fact that I didn’t like sports, how I avoided the other boys at school—even those who had once been friends. They told their parents that something funny was going on with me. […] I was condemned, as my father said, to a life of mediocrity. I didn’t know what a mediocre life looked like, exactly, but I thought it resembled my father’s.”
Aw’s treatment of Jay’s burgeoning desires and struggles with familial expectations are rendered with a delicate intimacy that resists easy categorization. Since his childhood, Jay has been acutely aware of his body’s limitations. Trying to run faster or play harder only highlighted what he felt he couldn’t do. Even basic movements, like sitting or walking, felt unnatural, “How could I stop sitting like a girl? How could I walk like a man? Sometimes it felt as though the very act of breathing was something I had to re-learn, so as not to be different from the others.” Jay’s struggle with selfhood mirrors his mother’s perennial cultural identity crisis recalling her responsibility and the burden she carried since age sixteen, navigating banks, police stations, registries, and immigration as her parents’ translator and guide due to their limited English, basic Malay, and lack of Chinese fluency: “She didn’t know if those people—sitting behind Plexiglas screens, wearing uniforms and name badges—looked down on her and her family because they were Chinese, or because they were poor. She wanted to be one of those people who did the despising, not those who were despised. Who was the despiser, who the despised, within her own family?”
The dynamics of the mother-son relationship between Sui and Jay are also reflected in Sui’s marriage to Jack and their individual perceptions within that relationship. Sui observes her son: “Jay, of course, always observant, always vigilant. She has to keep an eye on that one. Unlike his sisters, he doesn’t say much; sometimes she wonders what his silence holds.” Her observation is immediately validated as Jay watches his mother walking with his father: “Outside, in the dazzling light of the morning, the farm looked bleached of life. My parents were walking back up the slope towards the house, across the clearing where we’d parked, my mother shielding her face with a newspaper so that her famously pale complexion, of which she was very proud, wouldn’t get brown in the sun. She angled her face away from the sun, or maybe away from my father, because from a distance it looked as if the newspaper was a barrier she’d erected so that she wouldn’t have to see him walking next to her. She was a few steps ahead of him, striding quickly.”
Sui’s twenty-year marriage to Jack is marked by a lack of intimacy, leaving her indifferent to his erratic moods and movements. This disconnect isn’t lost on Fong either who reflects, “Maybe that’s how married life is. Everyone feels compelled to be together all the time, but in fact it’s the opposite, Fong thinks— erhaps you can only survive if you’re in a separate space.” Fong’s relationship with Jay’s father, Jack, is also strained by unspoken regrets. Both men understand the power of money in establishing and maintaining their unequal positions. Jack’s wealth and status create Fong’s dependence and ensure his continuous labor: “Still, both men understood money. They knew what it could achieve, and how it could maintain the hierarchy that separated them. The mathematical equation was easy: Jack’s money + status = Fong’s dependency + perpetual labour. How would it look if you deducted Jack’s money and added it to Fong’s labour?” Fong is a hardworking man shouldering the burden of the failing farm, a weight compounded by the challenges of raising his rebellious son, Chuan. Chuan personifies the restlessness and disillusionment of youth, his spirit chafing against the constraints of rural life as he seeks escape through odd jobs and a yearning for something beyond the farm’s borders.
Through their stories, Aw illuminates how sweeping historical events and subtle social pressures shape individual lives and collective self-perception. Like the barren landscape surrounding them, they appear unable to withstand the larger societal shifts that threaten to make their way of life irrelevant. Jack observes the unpredictable nature of the world: drought one year, floods the next. He connects global actions, like America’s car production, to local consequences, such as ozone damage and the resulting rain. He dismisses the idea of control, suggesting that their current situation is the unintended outcome of past efforts: “Our stupid currency is worth nothing these days, the Americans are screwing us, we can’t afford a new car, and by the way the old orchard is being ripped out. Did you see, the Prime Minister’s best buddy got arrested with a suitcase of cash in Australia, what a bunch of thieves they are, oh, I heard the stream at the farm got contaminated by toxic waste.”
Despite the land’s ruin Jack directs Jay to labor on what remains. Working the demanding farm acts as the catalyst for connecting Jay to his ancestors’ land, unveiling its challenges, rewards, and a growing appreciation for his roots. The narrative renders the landscape—from its rooted trees and yielding soil to the prominent expanse of the lake—with vivid detail that transcends mere setting, becoming strong presences and resonant symbols. In a world often defined by limitations, the lake in particular emerges as a vital character, a motif of Jay’s transformation and self-discovery.
During the oppressive heat of long days, Jay becomes increasingly fascinated by Chuan, Fong’s son, who seems his opposite in every aspect. Subtle flirtation deepens their intimacy and lead to tender moments between them: “He spreads his arms to indicate the size of this giant fish, and then one of his hands lands softly on my thigh.” It is within its waters that Jay and Chuan find a moment of shared liberation, the act of swimming in the lake representing a tangible release from societal constraints and a metaphorical cleansing of past insecurities. This shared experience fosters a deeper intimacy between them, a space where they can embrace their freedom and express their true selves, unburdened by the expectations of the land-bound world.
“It’s a nice story, Jay says. A bit predictable, that’s all. The pretty maiden and all that.
I know, Chuan replies. We could make up our own.
I have an idea.
Go on, surprise me.
What if it’s a boy? Who comes here because he’s yearning for another boy?
Small birds, perhaps swifts, scatter across the sky. Jay realises he is holding his breath.
Nice, Chuan says after a while. I like it.”
Aw’s intriguing choice of narration is reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. He merges Jay’s first-person narration with a rotating, discerning third-person from Jay, Fong, and Sui’s perspectives, all anchored within Jay’s voice. Aw leverages Jay’s emotional distance to foster intimacy while simultaneously providing a broader view of the unfolding drama through Jay’s contrasting voices of his first-person and third-person perspectives: “The drought has lasted for so long now that it is impossible for Jay to imagine the source of the humidity. Sometimes they surprise animals crossing the track in front of them—wild boar, large jungle cats or deer that emerge from the undergrowth and slip across the path and suddenly freeze in the glare of the headlamps. Jay is reminded of chemistry class, how viscous matter congeals instantly upon contact with another substance. Humans and animals stare at each other, and in that moment I am not sure which of them is more startled.” And, “Jay launches himself into the water towards Chuan, and in no time at all he is next to him. In no time. I can’t remember how long all this takes to unfold; it doesn’t matter.”
Beneath the surface of their individual stories, Aw’s novel pulses with an awareness of historical and social fault lines shining a powerful light on what’s broken, what needs healing and how his characters shape the narratives to do so. Cultural displacement, the ambiguity of belonging, and unspoken wounds passed down through generations are central themes that echo throughout the narrative, compelling readers to contemplate difficult realities about our world, “The headlines were grim, a constant haze of bad news from around the region. Thailand, Korea, Indonesia—all of them were in the same position as us. ‘It’s America’s fault,’ friends of my parents said, repeating government press releases. ‘The West wants to strangle us.’ The Prime Minister appeared on TV and blamed the crisis on the IMF, George Soros, ‘the Jews’, everyone he could think of. We laughed […] but of course we were afraid.”
Even as Aw addresses significant societal issues, the novel primarily focuses on the intricacies of human connection. He renders a delicate architecture of family bonds, the yearning and vulnerability of desire, and ways in which the larger public sphere inevitably shapes and sometimes shatters private lives. His ability to braid together individual experiences with the broader currents of contemporary Malaysian life ultimately invites readers to reflect on the forces that shape our identities, the burdens of history, and the enduring power of human connection.
Whether tracing the fault lines within a family struggling with the decline of tradition and the fading past or exploring the unexpected intimacies that blossom in new and challenging environments, Aw’s delicate and honest treatment of fragile human relationships lends The South an enduring emotional resonance.
Britta Stromeyer is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing appears in Flash Fiction Magazine, Bending Genres Journal, Necessary Fiction, On The Seawall, Marin Independent Journal, and other publications. Britta has authored award-winning children’s books and holds an MFA from Dominican University, CA, an M.A. from American University, and a Certificate in Novel Writing from Stanford University.
