Five Star Billionaire

I enjoyed Tash Aw's first two novels, The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible World, so I was looking forward to his most recent Five Star Billionaire (2013). It did not disappoint, however, it was a much different novel than the two previous ones. This novel follows the lives of five Malaysian migrant workers who move to Shanghai looking to reinvent their lives. Justin the fixer in a real estate development family, Phoebe who leaves factory jobs for the big city, Gary is a pop star on the rise, Yinghui has found business success, and lastly the mysterious billionaire Walter. These characters sometimes are in direct contact with each other, but other times they merely cross paths. Slowly through the course of the novel, the character's past lives are revealed as they try and reinvent themselves in the staggering metropolis of Shanghai. The arcs of the character's stories feels somewhat like a critique of capitalist society as it exists in China. It chews up and spits out migrants as the city expands and lives on no matter who is crushed in its path as towards progress. There are subtle critique of the lack of concern for preserving the past as well. In a sense, every character has something of a significant failure that profoundly changes the direction of their lives at the end of the novel. It is also, on another level, a tale of revenge. Aw has a strong grasp on the overlapping cultures of Malaysian Chinese, Taiwanese, and mainland Chinese. It is a fascinating, if not troubling, portrait of modern China.