โ Scribed by Tom Lin
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
An astounding debut that reimagines the classic Western through the eyes of a Chinese American assassin on a quest to rescue his kidnapped wife and exact his revenge on her abductors, and โdeclares the arrival of an astonishing new voiceโ (Jonathan Lethem).
Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoonโs henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.
Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.
Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one manโs quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.
"In Tom Linโs novel, the atmosphere of Cormac McCarthyโs West, or that of the Coen Brothersโ True Grit , gives way to the phantasmagorical shades of Ray Bradbury, Charles Finneyโs The Circus of Dr. Lao , and Katherine Dunnโs Geek Love. Yet The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu has a velocity and perspective all its own, and is a fierce new version of the Westward Dream." โJonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
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