Review 546: A Gesture Life

A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Franklin Hota known as Doc Hota around the quaint town of Bedley Run is our main character. This novel is mainly a character study. A Korean-Japanese immigrant to the United States, now living in a small town in New York. He sets up a shop of selling medical supplies, which is how he became known as Doc. He always tells people he’s not a doctor, but they insist on the moniker.

He adopted a daughter, Sunny, and named his business after her, but the relationship had never been a good one. As the book continues Franklin reveals more of his life during the war, where he served as a medic in the Japanese forces. His unit didn’t see much action, but they did have comfort women.

The book is not fast paced. There are a few people he becomes friends in town, particularly a neighbor he had a relationship with for a few years, but overall he seems to be a lonely person. Some of this stems from his childhood, where his parents sent him to live with an adopted family to become Japanese.

I never got a clear view of his relationship to his daughter while she was growing up. There were few snippets of that time, and she seemed to be removed emotionally from him. But without more to go on, it was hard to get a good sense.

There is movement of the daily life and things that happen, but overall no real plot. The story is propelled by the revelations of his time during the war and what actually happened.

The language and writing style was well done. I had this book sitting on my bookshelves for well over twenty years, not sure why I waited so long.

I started reading my print book. Around 40% through the book I wanted to read it faster, and sometimes I have more time to read via audio. I found the audiobook at my local library and finished the last 60% in a two days, where the first part took about a week.