The Incarnations

Susan Barker

Doubleday

Otago Daily Times, September 6th 2014

Susan Barker’s third novel, The Incarnations, combines a contemporary mystery story set during the build-up to the Beijing Olympics with a tour through some 14 centuries of Chinese history from the Tang Dynasty to the Cultural Revolution.

The novel’s protagonist, Wang Jun is a Beijing taxi driver; hardly a glamorous job but one that provides sufficient income to support his wife and daughter in relative comfort, and is in its own small way an act of rebellion against his domineering father.  Then somebody claiming to have been Wang’s soul mate throughout multiple reincarnations sends a letter seeking to re-establish their relationship. Further letters follow detailing their supposed previous lives together, each of which ends in violence, and although Wang doesn’t believe the stories, somebody is certainly trying to destroy his marriage. He suspects a friend from a shameful period of his youth who has suddenly reappeared in the city after years of absence and the novel shifts backwards and forwards in time between the historical interludes detailed in the letters, Wang’s own past, and his attempts to identify and stop his mysterious correspondent before he or his family is hurt.

Barker (who herself has Chinese ancestry) spent several years in Beijing researching this novel. Her writing lacks the heft of authors such as Ha Jin or Xinran, but it provides a glimpse of China’s long and complex history to Western readers. She cites Haruki Murakami, Kazou Ishiguro and David Mitchell as major influences, and there are echoes of all three in The Incarnations, although in theme and structure it reminded me most of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Years of Rice and Salt. Whilst I wouldn’t out her in quite the same league as these literary heavyweights, and there were a few jarring notes in the novel that I found quite disconcerting, it is an enjoyable light read that is likely to appeal to a wide audience.

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/glimpse-china-light-read