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Lost Men
published June 12, 2007 (2/26/08 in Paperback)
A novel of rare dignity and power, Lost Men is the story of a father and a son each confronting his past. After more than two decades apart, Westen is invited by his father to travel with him to China--a promise Xin made decades earlier when he left Westen with relatives after the death of Westen's Caucasian mother.
So it is that two strangers—a father and a son—travel halfway around the world to a land that one of them knows intimately and the other has never seen. As they tour the country, father and son reveal themselves slowly and awkwardly: Westen’s history of failed relationships and his conflicted cultural identity; Xin’s regret at leaving his son and the terrible secret he’s kept too long. And in the end, their relationship may just hinge on the contents of a sealed letter written by Westen’s mother before her death—one that threatens to answer the lifelong question neither of them has dared to ask.
Powerful, moving, and beautiful, Lost Men is a stunning literary novel that explores cultural and ethnic identity, the meaning of family, the exigencies of fate, and the lengths to which we will go to reconnect with those we fear we have lost. Brian Leung reveals both the intimate hearts of his characters and the telling details of place with equal—and substantial—grace.
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World Famous Love Acts
published April 1, 2004
Sweeping and fearless, World Famous Love Acts overrides stereotypes of race, age, gender, and sexuality. In this remarkable debut collection, Brian Leung creates a diverse landscape of distinctive characters. Among them, a 4' 10" hyperblonde Asian adult-film actress in Los Angeles, an archeologist working in China with her sun-scarred skin, a Midwestern screenwriter trying to "burn off" his accent, and a man with AIDS waiting to go home to die.
Loneliness and a persistent reach for meaning and comfort hold all these characters together. In "Six Ways to Jump off a Bridge," a Chinese egg-farmer confronts tde of old age after learning yet another person has made a suicidal jump from the bridge overlooking his home. In "Executing Dexter," two young boys from broken homes invent ways to torture and kill handmade dolls. And "Leases" takes place during "the time of morning to choose names for babies that will never be born" as a man waits to meet his wife in an apartment where for years he has brought male lovers.
Brian Leung writes like a true anthropologist, as both passionate outsider and gifted empath. His prose is crafted but genuine, both controlled and embracing. There seems to be no shoes he won't try on as he poignantly brings to life the search for a world of rescue and absolution.
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