An interesting and provocative novel that looks into the lives and private lives of strangers. This book will shock some and be too much for others. There is a genuine honesty within the words, but it never fully takes flight. It is interesting and keeps your attention, but when the story was done, so was I.

I DNF about 20% in; I just wasn't being captured by any characters or stories and became bored while reading Lurkers.

First with the positive. I did find the author’s descriptions interesting and cleverly written. That said, I found the read a trudge. I can love a book peopled with characters that I dislike with no problem. I, however, found that I had little interest in these characters in Lurkers. Indeed, anytime my interest was peaked, the author seemed to abruptly switch gears to another tangent. I see that this writer has some renown in documentary film and perhaps that is her better oeuvre.

The immigrant experience depicted in this book is something I appreciated. It was interesting to see the culture clash that is to be expected in a melting pot culture that is modern-day USA. What didn't work for me were the way the problematic topics were presented and discussed.
I think this book just wasn't for me.

I think, sometimes, the low rating on a book isn't because the book is bad, but more that the book, itself, is on another sort of level. Lurkers has no real... "plot" per se, but instead is a character study - of immigrants, of writers, of families. It's a slice of life - a very dark slice, but it's a real life. There isn't a sunshine and rainbows at the end of everything.

I loved this story and look at these lives.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Published by Soho Press on March 30, 2021

The characters in Lurkers are connected by their mutual residence on Santa Claus Lane in Alta Vista. A blue couch travels from one neighborhood home to another, while the owner of a third home wonders about its incongruence. A man writes bad fiction that his wife shares with a neighbor who is a published writer. Characters who occupied one home end up living in another. Characters’ lives are affected by neighbors they barely recognize.

Beverly Joon Park is a widow with two daughters. Her father was the pastor of a Korean evangelical church. Her husband converted to Christianity to marry her. When Beverly’s father died, her husband felt an obligation to take over as the church’s pastor. After her husband’s suicide, Beverly’s only desire is to sell her house (after she rids it of termites) so she can return with her daughters to Korea, a place she claimed to despise in the past. Now she just wants to live in a place that will not make her feel like a second-class citizen.

Beverly’s older daughter, Rosemary, is “a mysterious black box of womanly secrets.” She loses her virginity to a 16-year-old loser who turns out to be a bad choice for sexual partnership. Her obsession with a married drama teacher who might be a sexual predator is probably even worse. Yet Rosemary feels caged; only vigorous and frequent sex allows her to taste the freedom she craves. Beverly’s younger daughter, Mira, works to sabotage the move to Korea, a place where she imagines “all the men wore fake Air Jordans, burped kimchi and spent their spare time beating up their wives.”

Another neighborhood homeowner, Raymond van der Holt, is an aging gay man who made some money writing zombie novels and now spends his days brooding about his “casual brushes with the supernatural.” His muse has deserted him but he doesn’t want to write nonfiction, “a genre cherished beyond what it deserved by NPR-addled Americans.” His belief that Mira has been stalking him, masquerading as a demon, might be the product of a failing mind, as might certain other incidents that only Raymond perceives.

The other key neighbor is Kate Ireland, who occupies a house owned by her mother, Mary-Sue. Kate’s high school friend Bluto breezes into town and looks her up, bringing an underage girlfriend along for the ride. Against her better judgment, Kate ends up pregnant and stalked.

An ominous atmosphere pervades this darkly amusing novel. A police helicopter regularly circles the characters’ homes, perhaps looking for burglars who are plaguing the neighborhood. Men wearing hoods make threats and commit arson. A naked girl repeatedly slams her body against Raymond’s window, leaving smudged breast prints on the glass. At least two male characters are taking advantage of teenage girls. Sandi Tan leaves the impression that most men would do the same if they could get away with it.

While this is a novel of connections, few of the connections reach beyond the superficial, which I assume to be the point Tan is making about LA suburban life. Raymond is lonely, with only spirits to keep him company, in part because the people he encounters do not live up to his standards. Rosemary uses sex as a substitute for intimacy and sees nonphysical relationships as something to be endured. Kate has only her mother and the baby she created with Bluto, but it isn’t clear that she wants either of them in her life. There is little balance in this novel, little joy as a counterweight against gloom, but Tan peppers the story with enough moments of humor to keep the reader from joining Mr. Park in suicide. And despite the superficiality of their lives, the characters are developed in a satisfying degree of depth.

A letter from Beverly at the novel’s end might best sum up the novel’s philosophy. While she talks about Korea’s “culture of sadism, paranoia, and pointless rivalries” that, along with consumerism, keep people subservient, Beverly could just as easily be talking about her suburban life. The glimmers of hope we see in that old letter will, we know, eventually be lost.

An act of malice ends the novel on a surprising note, although the story’s absence of direction makes it surprising only in Tan’s refusal to compromise by delivering a happy ending. This isn’t a feel-good story. Life doesn’t always deliver the pleasure we desire. For some, pleasure is rare. Lurkers reflects that reality but does so in a nuanced way that never becomes overbearing or oppressive.

RECOMMENDED

Lurkers by Sandi Tan is a novel set in a suburban town on Santa Claus Lane following the lives of its inhabitants. The novel depicts the lives of disparate characters who seemingly have nothing in common beyond living in the the same area. This story is an ode to the culture of Los Angeles
and the complicated people that live in it, dashed with a bit of satire.

First let me start with how stunning this cover is. This book is unique and I don't think I have read a book with a voice like this one has, which may be due to the author's background as a director. This book makes keen observations with a sharp tone meaning it is not for everyone. The plot in this book also handles difficult topics like suicide, grooming, racism, etc yet despite the pointed commentary, it is still thoughtfully considered. I really enjoyed getting to know each of the character's and that each was complex with both good and bad to them, which made them come to life. My one critique is I was not impressed with how the story wrapped up which felt a bit sudden. However I am interested in reading what comes next from this author!

Many thanks to the publisher Soho Press and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Heavy content warning for pedophilia and predatory relationships throughout this book. I don't like stories where none of the characters are likable, and that was very much how this book played out. I thought the story had "good bones," if you will, but I felt the dialogue was not well written and seemed too conversational in a bad way. The writing didn't do justice to the solid idea of the story. While some of the characters had certain good qualities, ultimately everyone was revealed to be bad in some way—be it their sexism/homophobia/xenophobia/anti-semitism... et cetera.

All that being said, I do think the author did a good job of weaving between points of view! Every time the POV shifted, I didn't find myself wishing like the previous character should have stayed in focus. So I did enjoy some parts of the writing, but on the whole, I just don't think the characters were for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read and listen to this story. I did enjoy most of it. The book starts off, we learn about the Parks family and some of the residents of Santa Claus lane. There were some difficult moments in the middle that were cringe. I did like the ending and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone that reads it. This was the first time I read Sandi Tan and I will most likely read another book from her if I get the chance.

Sandi Tan's Lurkers is a complicated novel with largely Asian American protagonists set in a California suburb. I am not the usual audience for this book and realize that other reviewers would have better appreciated the characters and complications. There is a Vietnamese American who was adopted as a child and grew up on Santa Clause Lane. Her mother was a Midwest transplant who wanted to be a hippy but wasn't particularly unconventional in her own tastes and needs, but she was kind and devoted to her daughter. Their complicated mother-daughter relationship is one my favorites in the book. The Korean American family has much less sympathetic family dynamics - the two young daughters find their parents difficult, unsympathetic and embarrassing. When the father dies, the mother is unable to cope with the US and decides to take the family back to South Korea against the daughters' wishes. The nature and details of the daughters' rebellion is graphic and disturbing.

Sandi Tan writes with humor and sympathy and creates unusually complicated situations and characters. The Asian American characters are not particularly sweet or likable but they're fully fleshed out and complex. Lurkers is a book that hits you hard - you either like it a lot or will find it difficult/disturbing.

I just didn’t like this one. The characters were unlikeable, and the ending was bizarre.

I liked the setting of the story, Santa Claus Lane in Altadena, California. The author wove together the various residents of the streets using a short story format for the first half of the book.

The author also included harmful stereotypes about Indian Americans. In one case it was meant to demonstrate the ignorance of one of the characters. But in another it was simply lazy/poor research on the part of the author.

I do not recommend this one.

If I'm being honest with myself, this was just the most okay thing I've ever read. More than a story, it's just a collection of unlikeable, boring people doing unremarkable things and having unmemorable conversations.

🌿BOOK REVIEW🌿

Lurkers by Sandi Tan

This novel follows the lives of those on Santa Claus Lane, in LA. There are Rosemary and Mira who are children of Korean immigrants, an eccentric novelist who thinks he is seeing ghosts, and a single mum who adopts a child from Vietnam.

The title of this book comes from the occasions of ease dropping on neighbours and I do think it is really fitting in that sense!

This book just wasn’t for me as I struggled to connect with the writing style, but I’ve seen a lot of praise for this book! If the blurb intrigues you then you should give it a go!

23 / review: lurkers by sandi tan
📆 PUB DATE: March 30, 2021

💬 ”It skewed combative whether one was asking someone on a date or threatening them with a cleaver.”
📚 Three very different stories all converge on Santa Clause Lane. This is a multi-perspective character study that examines the lives of a Korean family struggling with grief and uncertainty, an angling novelist who thinks he is being haunted, and a white mid-western hippie and her adopted Vietnamese daughter.
👍 There are a lot of interesting pieces in this novel. I really love a book that digs into its characters flaws in a way that feels humane, and not just like a brutal condemnation of those flaws. There was one POV I gravitated towards more than the rest (the Korean family) and every time they were off the page I just wanted to check back in on them.
👎 I would love to read a short story collection by Tan. Because, while I enjoyed the pieces of this novel individually, it didn’t work for me as a cohesive narrative. There were a lot of threads that seemed to get dropped and never picked up on again and there was a lot going on as we flipped back and forth between perspectives.

VERDICT:
⭐️⭐️⭐️—An interesting character study but the shifting perspective interrupts the flow.
📚Pair With: Turbulence by David Szalay & Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
⚠️Content Warning: Suicide, racism, grooming of a minor.

"Lurkers" by Sandi Tan was a delicious and slightly depraved romp. I thought the writing was sharp, funny, and very tongue-in-cheek. I think this book is getting a lot of unfair feedback. There are some disturbing subject matter but I thought it was handled tastefully. Also, I think people need to remember this novel is a SATIRE. The subplots and adult themes are supposed to be written in an off-color way. Not meant for the light-hearted and easily offended. This book had me hooked until the last 30 pages. The ending was so rushed and certain storylines didn't feel resolved, and I was left with unanswered questions. That was my only gripe. The story is so breezy and full of personality. I was hooked after the first chapter. Usually I'm not a fan of intersecting storylines, but this one was strong because of the writing style and character development. Every character was unique. None of them felt interchangeable or wooden. I think my favorite was Mira, she's such a little pistol. And would you look at that cover art!?!? It's simply divine.

Thank you, Netgalley and Soho Press for the digital ARC.

Release date: March 30, 2021

𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡. 𝐇𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝. 𝐀𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧- 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐞.

An apt title, Lurkers. On Santa Claus Lane, Korean American sisters Mira and Rosemary are growing up in a home where their father is a mystery, someone they imagine wanted nothing more in life to be somewhere else, or better yet, anyone else. Their mother is clueless about the realities they will soon face. If they lose their home, the girls fear they will have to move back to the one place their mother is comfortable living, Korea. The idea horrifies the two, who can’t even speak their parents native tongue. Long ago, Mr. Park ( their immigrant father) showed promise with his engineering degree but life snowballed and fate led him to work as a busboy at his cousin’s restaurant. Later by marrying their much younger mother, life led him to take the place of his wife’s minister father and become one himself. His daughters don’t understand him, they are too American in their speech and thoughts, disrespectful, and no one realize he has a secret dream of his own. If he can just produce something of value, then things could be different! Misfortune visits and a suicide leaves the Park family reeling.

By the time the girls discover what he was working on, it may be too late and just confound them even more. The Park’s neighbor, Raymond Van Der Holt, a gay horror writer, finds himself on the hook helping Mrs. Park. Her visit is a strange disruption but nothing as odd as his intruder/ghost and at least the Korean housewife comes bearing food. Before long, the strange neighbors infiltrate his quiet life. He doesn’t realize just how deeply he will be connected to them.

Rosemary takes up theater to spice up her college application, under the spell of the seductive Mr. Z, who pushes trust exercises on the students and urges them to let go of their inhibitions. He hones in on Rosemary, paying her the attention she desperately craves but it’s a dangerous game. He demands raw honesty, but he himself is anything but honest. His workshop is a hothouse of sexual innuendos, and he himself is corrupting youth, grooming them. Youngest daughter Mira wants to conjure an entity to haunt their home. She is coming up with strange ideas to stop the sale of their house, tormenting their mother. When a termite inspector visits, her mind strays to devious plans.

Mary-Sue lived a life away from the poisonous chaos of her brother, spending years in a colony of modern ascetics trying to be a better, calmer version of herself. Family intrudes, as does the Vietnam war, and when she finally makes her way home she gathers the last remains of her family. She decides to adopt a Vietnamese orphan. This child, Kate, grows up feeling shadowed by her tragic history. A sullen girl who feels more like a lodger than her mother’s child, despite Mary-Sue’s love, there always seems to be a vast distance between them. Kate’s best friend is Paul, a kid just as disaffected as her. The two spend their teen years never turning romantic, all those should haves. After college she moves back home, years roll on and the two cross paths again. Paul has fifteen year old girl at his side, she assumes it’s his child. This is where it gets seedy and weird, and his explanation for being with the girl is warped.

The stories merge on Santa Claus Lane and at times it’s hard to keep track of. I didn’t much care for the sisters, Mira and Rosemary. Sure, their exasperation with their parents is understandable but they come off as cold fish. Kate and Paul’s tale makes for an uncomfortable read, not because the younger girl as a mirror/ode to Kate was surprising but I was disgusted with the whole mess of it. That Kate isn’t appalled is shocking. It’s a perverse bunch. Honestly, in the end, the saddest thing is I felt sorry only for the characters who aren’t given much space- Mr. and Mrs. Park. If there are redeeming qualities here it is in poor Raymond. The supernatural bits confounded me, sort of threw off the story. The letter at the end would have made for a far more meaningful, affecting story I would have gobbled up. It had all the emotion I was searching for in the rest of the book. Why I liked parts of it has to do with the immigrant experience, leaving behind their origins, the feeling of searching for an identity and how Kate never felt she belonged or deserved anything was rich writing. Too, the struggle Mr. Park faced trying to fit into this American life. It’s awful, honest. What I could do without, the sex which was not erotic, just felt voyeuristic and not at all my cup of tea. The sleazy men dominated the tale, my God, it’s low belly bastards haunting the book and I could not stand it. The writing is at times intelligent but a lot of the uncomfortable stuff doesn’t sit well. I think Tan can write, but I felt like the characters just kept running away from me. When it comes to Paul and Mr. Z- don’t get me started.

Publication Date: March 30, 2021

Soho Press

Sandi Tan's LURKERS revolves around the residents of Santa Claus Lane, located in a suburb of Los Angeles. Rosemary and Mira(cle) Park live with their parents who are immigrants from Korea- their father a pastor, their mother stays at home and thinks fondly of Korea, wishing to return. Mary-Sue Ireland lives across the street. She adopts a child from Vietnam who she names Kate and raises her as a single mom. An older novelist lives in the biggest house in the neighborhood and thinks he is seeing ghosts. LURKERS alternates narrators, jumping around with plot lines that do not always resolve. Subjectively, I struggled with this one. The majority of the characters are pretty repellant to me. And there are multiple instances of adults either fantasizing/obsessing or explictly preying on underage girls. The title of LURKERS resonates in that there are multiple instances of characters spying on others and "lurking" outside their houses. There were flashes of character development that intrigued me, but threads were dropped and not picked up. Just left a bit of an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Perhaps not the right audience.

But thank you still to NetGalley and Soho Press for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Holy moly what a book LURKERS is. I could not put it down the past few days. I fell in love with the author, Sandi Tan, after seeing her documentary SHIRKERS last year (it's on Netflix and I implore you to watch it!) I was so excited to see she had written a novel and was super excited to get a early copy of it. It does not disappoint, especially if you are in the mood for some dark humor, twisted storylines, and characters like you have never come across in writing before.

Set in 2006 in Southern California, we meet the inhabitants of Santa Claus Lane, consisting of a Korean-American family with two precocious teenage girls, a gay horror author living in a hermetically sealed mansion, and a late bloomer mother who adopts a Vietnam refugee 20 years prior. Their lives collide in completely wild ways and Tan's writing will both keep you guessing and glued to the page. Fair warning, many of the shocking moments can also be cringeworthy and uncomfortable, but I felt safe with Tan and knew she could pull off the outrageous and controversial moments. The characters do not hold back, and their points of view often questionable, but it paints a vivid picture and the pay-off in the end certainly works. Highly recommend LURKERS if you are in the mood for something off-beat and unforgettable.

I think I would read short stories by Sandi Tan. Sometimes, I enjoyed the way the author described characters’ actions, their thoughts, and perceptions.

But only sometimes, and in small doses.

As a novel, Lurkers aimlessly drags on, with little direction or any sense of a plot. The book lacks a clear conflict, yet it’s not exactly a character-driven story, either. There is an attempt to incorporate the supernatural in a mundane way, but sadly, the keyword here is “attempt”. It felt lackluster and out-of-place. At times, it feels like an irreverent joke. Perhaps that was the intention?

Throughout the story, I could not care about the characters, at all. I think I was supposed to find Mira and Rosemary’s banter endearing or funny, but I never did. The shifting POVs also do the book a great disservice. Just when I’m starting to faintly care about what is happening for a particular character, the author lurches me back to another character’s POV, and the moment is gone. When I return back to them, I could not care less. This, as a novel, is sadly a no for me.

I can't tell if this is a satire or not. In the beginning, we're introduced to the terrible writing of a Korean pastor in the US. What follows could be his terrible stories. Are they supposed to be? Are they not? Everyone in the book is disaffected; they engage in risky behaviors for no apparent reason--in fact, most of what everyone does is for no reason. It's a poorly-told tale of slightly overlapping lives of people who are all just total assholes.