THE SOUTH

Two young men furtively seek connection and an escape from their disappointed fathers.

Malaysian author Aw’s fifth novel is a melancholy remembrance of a summer spent in the southern reaches of that South Asian country. The family of the narrator of much of the novel, Jay, has learned that they’re set to inherit a small patch of land there. It’s managed by a caretaker named Fong, though there’s not much to manage, just a few trees bearing little fruit, on “twenty hectares of scrubby jungle and farmland”; however, 16-year-old Jay is instantly enchanted with Fong’s son, Chuan. Over the course of the summer, Jay helps clear the land but mostly keeps Chuan company by swimming and drinking with him as they slowly grow ever closer. Meanwhile, Jay’s older sisters clue Jay into his parents’ collapsing marriage, which is a mismatch on a number of levels; Jack is a foursquare mathematics teacher, while Sui is more emotional and from a lower-class background. As the boys look for opportunities to elude their parents’ criticism, Aw writes gracefully and sensually about Jay’s ever-intensifying desires for sex and independence—in many ways the story echoes the lush, erotic tone of André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name. And Aw’s visions of the surroundings are effectively complex, at once rich yet bleached out, Edenic yet touched with dread. (Always lyrical, though: “Dusk was falling and the evening sky behind him was flecked with bats and swifts returning from the river nearby.”) But despite its themes of sex, betrayal, masculinity, queerness, and property, the novel as a whole feels oddly static, built on elegantly written sections but never placing Jay in situations that feel particularly tense. The boys’ craving new lives for themselves is intriguing, but Aw’s treatment is stubbornly restrained.

A somber, slow-moving coming-of-age tale.