Not Fade Away

Leonard Chang’s irresistible Fade to Clear proves the novelist is here to stay

Fade to Clear by Leonard Chang (Thomas Dunne Books, 336 pages)

Review by Charse Yun



As a literary snob, I have never been a fan of crime fiction, hardboiled crime thrillers, suspense novels, whatever. Sure, I once read a Raymond Chandler novel (there was that beautiful line about a man “spearing” a cigarette into his mouth), but unless you’re a goon in a fedora pressing your shiny, black gloves against my throat in a back alley, I would never endorse anything as déclassé as a potboiler crime novel. That is, not until I read Leonard Chang. But even this is misleading because Chang doesn’t write crime fiction, at least not the pulp kind littered with grifters, private dicks and femme fatales.

There is no easy way to describe Chang’s novels (well, one review called it “neonoir”) except to say that they are the most entertaining, enjoyable books I’ve read in recent memory. The series, now into its third installment, centers around the life of Korean American private investigator Allen Choice, a protagonist who Chang first introduced in 2001’s Over the Shoulder and followed up in 2003’s Underkill. Barely a year later, we now have Fade to Clear (Thomas Dunne Books), which is, improbably, even better than the previous two and demonstrates how comfortably Chang has slipped into a groove of mastery and confidence. Chang has received rave reviews that acknowledge the caliber of his talent in the genre (USA Today and the Wall Street Journal don’t share my qualms about crime fiction), and which describe his novels as a sophisticated hybrid that blends the classic literary novel with realistic depictions of race and relationship tensions. Call him the writer of Choice.

Allen Choice, an introspective 30-something KA who works in the San Francisco Bay Area and who constructs his own philosophical terms to describe his alienation and isolation, is not your run-of-the-mill hero. Written in the third-person (a switch that works terrifically), Fade to Clear finds Allen as a partner at Baxter & Choice Investigations, with his commitment to his girlfriend and his job in the pressure-cooker. This time around, Allen is in love, but the fact that he is dating someone of the same ethnicity (Serena Yew, the lithe KA love interest from his last novel) presents Allen with more, not less, complications. Sure, he’s a fit, athletic, quick-thinking KA undercover brother, but he still suffers panic attacks when grilled by Serena’s rigid parents and makes socially awkward conversation-stopping comments, especially in the company of Serena’s high-brow friends. Peter Parker, meet your KA male counterpart.

Of course, certain formulaic plot developments of the genre tend to repeat themselves. The series of actions in Fade really begins when Allen’s ex-lover Linda reappears (she helped him investigate his father’s murder in the first novel and her brother’s murder in the second), and this time, she asks Allen to help find her abducted niece. (Note to Allen: Linda is trouble, buddy. Avoid at all costs.) As you become absorbed in this book, you will find something much deeper: writing that comes close to being exquisite. Chang weaves his narratives with passages that touch upon the characters’ backgrounds and their emotional history, making even the stuff of everyday life poignant and moving. Take the following paragraph for example:

“ The contours of grief are textured and serrated, and if you run your fingers over them, Braille-like to read the trajectory of sadness, you find the ridges rising and falling with small snags and depressions. They are never smooth; they cut your fingertips. You will leave a thin trace of blood.”

Chang also goes to incredible lengths to establish the veracity of Allen’s character, whether it is by revealing that he is licensed by California’s Department of Consumer Affairs Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, or by describing the latest bugging devices and real-life internal procedures of professional investigators. I first noticed this meticulous touch in Chang’s Dispatches from the Cold (not an Allen Choice novel), where he describes the daily business of running a sporting goods store. The logistics are so convincingly depicted that readers could operate their own Foot Locker by the end of the novel. But these minute details are everywhere in Chang’s novels: the unfamiliarity with Linda’s Honda that makes Allen accelerate too quickly; the small plastic table in the pizza parlor that rocks every time he reaches for a plate; the friend’s cell phone that Allen borrows that unexpectedly rings, giving away his position. All of these wonderfully tactile details engage the reader and make the book immensely enjoyable to read.

If you’re like me, you could not care less about Philip Marlowe or Mike Hammer. But you’ll actually care about Allen, his hang-ups, his hopes of making it through life. I’m no longer ashamed to admit it. Chang’s delightful novels have made a true believer out of me. I may still be a literary snob, but I now respect the power of noir. Fade to Clear will be the most fun you’ll have reading all year.