Things Fall Apart in "The Manor of Dreams" - Chicago Review of Books

Things Fall Apart in "The Manor of Dreams" - Chicago Review of Books

In Christina Li’s debut novel, we begin with the death of a once-renowned actress, Vivian Yin, and the reading of her will. This is a trope familiar to us in both books and film, a recent example being Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. Like Knives Out, what emerges is a haves and have-nots drama when Yin’s children are disinherited in favor of Elaine Deng, Yin’s housekeeper’s daughter. Despite these familiar beginnings, Li’s novel takes on a distinctiv…