The south A novel

That year when Jay was 16, his mother, Sui, "decided that [they] would go south" rather than north to visit his ailing grandmother. One year earlier, his paternal grandfather died, leaving a modest fortune divided equally among three sons, except for "twenty hectares of scrubby jungle and farmland" that he gave solely to Sui. Although Sui deemed the inheritance worthless, the family would "still have to go and check up on it." Jay, his parents, and his two older sisters are met by the farm's manager, Fong, and his 19-year-old son, Chuan. Draught has devastated the land, but Fong dreams of future possibilities; Chuan, of escape. Twice Booker Prize--nominated Aw bestows Jay with first-person agency. Bonding particularly with Chuan, Jay will be the most affected by life-changing journeys of exploration and awareness that summer. Aw offers third-person, elliptical glimpses of Fong and Sui, sharing their vulnerable uncertainty. While revealing secrets and longings of a family in flux, Aw deftly hints at futures to come. In controlled, meticulous prose, Aw introduces the first of a planned tetralogy centering his Malaysian homeland.

The stellar latest from Aw (The Harmony Silk Factory) chronicles a sensitive boy's coming-of-age and his family's private pain. "Wayward" adolescent Jay is the youngest of the Lim family, who leave their unnamed Malaysian city during his summer break from high school for their small farm in the south. Aw evokes a mood of pervasive decline, describing the financial troubles plaguing the country, the farm's economic problems, and the deterioration of family patriarch Jack, a severe, unlikable math teacher. Against this melancholy backdrop, Aw masterfully juxtaposes the hopes and desires of the younger generation, crystallized in the tender, slow-burning relationship between Jay and a slightly older and stronger boy named Chuan, son of the farm's manager. Questions of how to manage one's inheritance, whether of material assets or emotional baggage, are central to the novel, as Aw explores how the characters, especially Jay's mother, Sui, feel indebted and trapped. Through alternating close-third perspective, and occasional first-person passages from Jay, Aw offers a clear view into the characters' inner lives, revealing their aching desires and the secret relationships and personal crises they hide from each other. In addition to the perceptive characterizations, Aw uses rich symbolism, such as the Lims' ever-present tamarind grove, alive and beautiful but terminally diseased. This masterwork of psychological realism brings to mind the classic novels of E.M. Forster. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (May)

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'sCall 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.