* 2023 Openbook Award
Author Roan Ching-Yueh imbues a lifetime’s worth of experiences into this short story compilation. The narrative shuttles back and forth between Roan’s childhood and present reality in an imagined boat that pays metaphorical homage to celebrated Taiwan author Chi Ten-Shung.
A Boat on Silvery Waves compiles six short stories by Roan Ching-Yueh that collectively muse upon family history and the author’s remembered experiences with family, lovers, and friends. The title pays homage to author Chi Ten-Shung’s short story Wings Aloft on Silvery Waves, with “silvery waves” a metaphor for surging swells of memories and fanciful dreams. The final story in this collection follows an imagined dialogue between Roan and one of his most beloved authors that takes its cue from passages excerpted from Chi’s work.
These stories shared by the author from a first-person perspective meander between the plausible and the absurd. Despite quiet, demure Grandmother’s parsimony with words, her tiny feet and lackluster housekeeping skills hint at a privileged upbringing that only makes her decision to marry Grandfather even more perplexing. While Mother loves to regale Father and the family about her own family’s “glory days” and cares for her children and brothers with devotion, she shuns all pretenses of femininity. Father, outgoing and generous, has a sensitive and passionate heart; but his relations with some of his many female “friends” make family life somewhat more “interesting” than it might otherwise be. Younger Uncle, dashingly charming, molders away in an insane asylum while his intended victim, Mother’s sister-in-law, is transformed into the inspiration for this short story. “I” plumb lived emotional relationships and experiences in search of things gained and things lost.
The author unravels unsettled mysteries through the self-dissection he performs through his stories in which he examines closely the frayed edges of his memories and the self-doubt in his narrative recountings. He disgorges his memories and, in doing so, lets understanding and hope ease the burden of life’s wounds.