Decades ago, two child actors shared a moment of fame. Now, on the threshold of middle age, they are reunited at a film festival in France. As memories mingle with the hard truths of the present, they find solace together, and finally tend to the wounds of childhood and the disappointments of lost love.
Just past the threshold of middle age, “she” is no longer a glamorous starlet. Nor is she a beautiful wife in a perfect family, as others saw her after her marriage to her politician husband. Roughly the same age, “he” was once a leading man, but he slowly retreated from the spotlight and now resides quietly in France. As child stars, the pair had appeared together in a television advertisement. The director was so taken with them that he tailor-wrote a dramatic script for them, and the resulting film became a worldwide art house classic. Now, the film has been restored in 4K, and will be screened at the Nantes Film Festival, giving the stars a chance to reunite after many years of silence. Their pasts will join them for this fateful reunion, as the memories of childhood and past loves resurface.
As her mother’s money tree, she had been pushed into the acting world at a young age, setting her apart from her peers. The men she grew close to – an aspiring medical student, a student activist, and an assistant director of a theatrical group – were all the same: they treated her like a ragdoll, subjecting her to their violent whims.
Like her, he had never felt loved by his parents. His father treated him no differently than the pangolins he raised to sell on the black market. After appearing in some nude scenes, and participating in the gay liberation movement of the 90’s, his father’s indifference turned to scorn. Thus began his self-imposed exile in France, where he entertained a string of lovers, but, sadly, the only one that stole his heart died in a car accident.
Loneliness was their shared fate. Each bearing the burdens of childhood trauma, only the other can reach to the heart of their aloneness. As a homosexual male and a heterosexual female, each turns to the other for sympathy and understanding as they twist in the fetters of patriarchal power and abuse.
Within the novel, the unnamed “he” and “she” represent larger groups – homosexual men and heterosexual women – the objects of patriarchal oppression. Masterfully narrated in the third person, the novel nonetheless reads like a direct account of the inner conflicts of the characters, announcing a new milestone of Taiwan LBGTQ literature from perennial award-winner Kevin Chen.