A GEM OF A BOOK ABOUT DELTA MAGIC 
                                              By J. Charles
        artssf.com, the independent observer of Northern California books
                                                                 Weeks starting June 29, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 35
     The Chinese have lived in the Sacramento River delta since the 1860's.  They first came to build the levees, and they stayed to work on farms and in orchards.  After a catastrophic fire in the Chinese section of Walnut Grove in 1915, some of them founded the town of Locke.  Locke was an entirely Chinese town, built on leased land because Chinese couldn't be landowners.  It had a mostly male population because immigration laws strictly controlled the entrance of wives and families. 
     Locke, tiny but rich in history, is the setting for Berkeley-based Shawna Yang Ryan's fine debut novel, Water Ghosts.   The time is 1928, when the town is young and flourishing.
     The long list of  characters which Ryan helpfully provides gives a hint of the motley population of  this novel.  Even the minor players, some of whom never make it to Locke, are colorful: a New York jazz singer; a murderer who's a butcher by trade; gamblers and bootleggers.  But the story centers on three complex women.  Corlissa Lee, banished from her family because of her interracial marriage, is the only white woman in Locke who is not a prostitute.  Chloe Howell, lost to her disfunctional Sacramento family, is a young white woman who is a prostitute.  Poppy See, shipped off from China to America for a marriage which never materialized, runs the local brothel and copes with the dubious gift of second sight. 
     No less intriguing are the men in town, although, unfortunately, Ryan develops their characters less thoroughly.  Richard Fong, Poppy's erstwhile lover and Chloe's unofficial keeper,  manages a gambling hall.   Corlissa's husband Howar Lee is a Christian minister.
     To this little town come three more women who will turn it upside down.  These are the mysterious boat women, washed up on the river shore the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, exhausted and foul-smelling from their journey from China.  One of them is Richard's wife whom he left behind ten years ago.  The other two have less clear reasons for their long journey.  But perhaps, as some Locke residents believe,  the three are not what they seem.  They may be  water ghosts, the spirits of the drowned, seeking victims whose stolen lives will return them to the living world. 
     Or perhaps not.  Late in the story, a wise old man says, "There are no ghosts.  There is no such thing, little Poppy.  No ghosts -- only our regrets."
     Ghosts or not, what the boat women do, in an inexplicable way,  is to reveal the regrets of Locke.  Corlissa is growing old, dealing with a cooling marriage and a rebellious daughter.  Chloe has lost a baby and drifted into a sordid life.  Poppy has lost her lover and can't control the events she foresees. 
     Ryan skilfully combines the stories of these people with California history and Chinese folk tales.  The novel is complex, moving forward and back in time, in and out of reality.  Perhaps it is a sign of  her skill, and the dense population of her novel,  that many characters seem to deserve more time than Ryan can give.  This is particularly the case with the minister Howar Lee, but even the fifty-two men who court the boat women (females are scarce in Locke) capture our interest.  There are no boring people in this town. 
     The Sacramento Delta provides a perfect setting for this novel.  Its heat and humidity and the sudden river mists  are the right backdrop for such a mysterious story. And the hard, sweaty work required of everyone is an apt metaphor for the trials of  immigrant life.
     A good story, an interesting piece of history, a compelling setting.  This book is a gem.  Read it slowly and savor the skill of a writer who can produce it so early in her career.  Then wait eagerly for Shawna Yang Ryan's next novel.
      Water Ghosts, a book by Shawna Yang Ryan. The Penguin Press, 234 pp., $22.95.
      ©J. Charles 2009
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        J. Charles is a book-review contributor to www.artssf.com.
   These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly)focus on book reviews (by authors of the region), plus theater, dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists as well.
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