Lester Chang’s mother hounds him to bring a Chinese girlfriend to his father’s seventieth birthday party. He wants to bring a white date. Awkward with women in general and white women in particular, he fantasizes that the Scandinavian blonde bank teller will respond to his knowledge of European cinema and Kierkegaard. She does not. Over the course of a week, he discovers he cannot hit it off with any woman. Disillusioned, he transforms from lover of white women to their stalker.
Something creepy about Lester!
There is something definitely creepy about Lester, but first the writing. The writing is wonderfully done, written in first person, in present tense. I think that adds to the story and if written in a different tense or POV, it would be a different story. The Chinese culture is brought into the story, but one does not have to understand it or be part of it, to enjoy the story. Lester is creepy and he's supposed to be. He once told a prostitute "I've never made love to anyone before unless you count those occasions when I had to pay for sex." Lester's mother wants him to marry a nice Chinese girl, but Lester has a darkness inside him that makes him go after white women. It's a great novella, and worth the short read. I read it in paperback and it was read from beginning to end, even with a few page rereads. The characters were a bit stilted and needed more depth, but the story works.
