KoreAm Journal
February 2001 / volume 12 - number 2
K.A.
CONFIDENTIAL
Leonard Chang goes undercover with Over the Shoulder
By Charse Yun
Among the recent spate of critically acclaimed literature by Korean Americans, Leonard Chang's novels stand alongside the best of them. His first book, The Fruit 'N Food, won the Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction in 1996, and his second, Dispatches from the Cold, has been optioned for a film. But it may be Chang's latest, Over the Shoulder: A Novel of Intrigue (HarperCollins/Ecco), that will finally push him over the edge and into the spotlight as one of the best writers in America.
Chang, 32, had no great expectations when he decided to pursue writing. Having read literary biographies and interviews with writers, he knew that the writer's life was no easy task. But still, "You couldn't ask for a better job in that I essentially get paid to tell stories," Chang says. "I love reading and I love literature and I am now a part of that. It's something I always want to do and never want to change."
Chang is understandably proud of his latest work, Over the Shoulder, which is a blend of crime and literary novel. Critics have already been blown away by Chang's innovative use of the noir format to explore and investigate the Korean American protagonist's life, as well as issues of race and class. Some have even called it "Asian American noir." Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, praises it as "Chang's highest achievement to this point."
The noir genre has traditionally been populated by characters like Sam Spade, played on the silver screen by Humphrey Bogart in trenchcoat, muttering voiceovers in the shadows of an alley with hat pulled down, cigarette dangling. But in Over the Shoulder, the hero is a 30-something KA named Allen Choice, who works as a "security specialist" -- a professional bodyguard. Investigating his partner's death, Choice is led into a deepening mystery that involves the death of his own father 20 years prior. Aided by a young female reporter, the pair unravel a web of connections that involve race, class and family tensions.
But this novel is not just for connoisseurs of mystery fiction. While Chang is clearly working within the noir genre, Over the Shoulder is at the same time a serious literary work that will satisfy readers who may be unfamiliar with crime fiction. The novel is truly a unique hybrid in theme, form and character that provides a wealth of analysis for students of Asian American literature. The stunning result is a story that subverts the reader's expectations of what an "Asian American" novel or crime fiction novel should be. "Well, I'm really glad you're saying that because that's exactly what I was trying to do," says Chang, during a break from his teaching duties at Antioch University's graduate writing program. "And it's what I look for as a reader. I do not want to get what I expect. I want to be surprised, and I want to be intrigued."
But was this a conscious attempt to reject shopworn motifs in Asian American literature? "I don't think so," says Chang. "I think that I myself have just moved beyond those issues in my own personal life that when I started writing this new book, the things that I was concerned about were issues that affected my directly, such as how a person of Asian descent makes his way through the world."
Indeed, those issues translate into one of the book's most refreshing aspects: its depiction of a realistic character, whether Asian American or not. Thus, Allen Choice is just your average Joe worrying about bills and future career, feeling overwhelmed by events in life. Chang explains, "I wanted to write somebody I could identify with. I identify with the guy just trying to pay his bills, just trying to his job and do his job well." But here too, Chang says that there wasn't any conscious agenda to thwart stereotypes. "It's just an attempt to make the characters as real and vivid as possible."
That honesty also translates into Chang's personal life. While the novel's poignant, reflective passages, reveal the author's own philosophy and classic literary background, Chang holds no snobbish literary pretensions. When asked whether he is a fan of noir fiction, Chang responds with an enthusiastic "Yeah!" and cites Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye) and Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon), among many other hardboiled writers as seminal influences. In fact, Chang avidly read crime fiction in order to avoid the "serious" books foisted upon him as a child.
His mother, a student of literature herself, introduced him to Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck from a very early age. But in college, Chang chose to study philosophy instead, and steeped himself in crime fiction for his own enjoyment. The influence can even be seen in his two earlier novels that, though not directly crime-related, have race and violence intertwined within them. He says, "I notice now actually going back that [the two novels] are very much based on transgression, and crime is part of that even though it wasn't part of a conscious decision."
In a sense, it was a gamble for Chang to try and create a KA novel in the tradition of crime fiction. In less able hands, it could have had masters of the genre like Hammett and Chandler rolling in their graves. But Chang succeeds brilliantly. Over the Shoulder is one of the most exciting and innovative works to come out to Asian American and noir fiction in a long time. Over the Shoulder instead has a skulking Chandler and Hammett looking over their own shoulders to find out who this talented writer is that has just joined their ranks.
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