Marital strife, inter-gang feuds, public corruption, drug deal infiltrations, Taiwan and Hong Kong, politics and the pandemic…all these incongruous elements come together in the novel Trivial Acts of Violence. As she familiarizes readers with the story’s many main characters, author Chan Wai weaves a complex yet naturally flowing tale that is significantly larger than the sum of its constituent parts. Each element, familiar and, at first blush, seemingly extraneous to the narrative stream, neatly capsulizes one of the countless trivial acts of violence that together help define the world in which we all live.