Ghost Town: A haunting tale of murder, secrets and superstitions

(Paperback)

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'Rich and complicated.' - The News Lens
'Ghost Town is a masterpiece of twenty-first century Taiwanese 'native soil' literature.' - United Daily News (Taiwan)
'Magical, fierce, pungent, and cruel.' - BIOS Monthly

Chen Tien-Hong, the only and desperately yearned for son of a traditional Taiwanese family with seven daughters, runs away from the oppression of his village to Berlin in the hope of finding acceptance as a young gay man.

The novel begins a decade later, when Chen has just been released from prison for killing his boyfriend. He is about to return to his family's village, a poor and desolate place. With his parents gone, his sisters married, mad, or dead, there is nothing left for him there. As the story unfurls, we learn what tore this family apart and, more importantly, the truth behind the murder of Chen's boyfriend.

Told in myriad voices--both living and dead--and moving through time with deceptive ease, Ghost Town weaves a mesmerizing web of family secrets and countryside superstitions, the search for identity and clash of cultures.

Reviews

"An uncompromising, unsentimental, slyly humorous novel." * Irish Times *
"Chen offers a haunting... drama of a Taiwanese familys efforts to rise out of poverty." * Publishers Weekly *
Chens characters are vibrant and quirky, and his writing style is consistently precise and sharp; Taiwanese cultural issues are framed in enlightening fashion. * Buzz Magazine *
Wildly poetic, it sings and dances. This book is magical, it is truly poetic. It is captivating, it is painful, it is rich and vibrant. * Books and Bao *
Rich and complicated. * The News Lens *
Ghost Town is a masterpiece of twenty-first century Taiwanese 'native soil' literature. * United Daily News (Taiwan) *
Magical, fierce, pungent, and cruel. * BIOS Monthly *

Author Bio

Kevin Chen began his artistic career as a cinema actor, starring in the Taiwanese and German films Ghosted, Kung Bao Huhn, and Global Player. Now based in Germany, he is a staff writer for Performing Arts Reviews magazine. He's published several novels, essays and short story collections, including Attitude, Flowers from Fingernails, Three Ways to Get Rid of Allergies and other titles.

Darryl Sterk is a scholar specialising in the representation of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples in film and fiction, as well as a writer and literary translator specialising in Taiwan literature.