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The family plot a no
Author: Yan LiankePage Count: UnknownPublication Date: Expected publication 2026 APL The synopsis of The Family Plot reads like a script for a Chinese House of Leaves—if House of Leaves had been written by a man who’d just finished a particularly bitter round of Cutthroat Kitchen and decided to channel his rage into prose. The premise is so broad, so deliberately vague, that it feels less like a novel and more like a placeholder for whatever existential dread Yan Lianke’s subconscious vomited onto the page this time. The idea of a family unraveling over the "desire for success" is so clichéd it borders on the insulting—unless, of course, you’re expecting a novel that treats ambition like a contagion, a slow-motion plague that spreads through the veins of Gaotian Town like the H5N1 strain in Contagion, but with more backroom deals and less actual epidemiology. The synopsis doesn’t even bother to specify how the family descends into chaos—just that each member is "thinking about killing one of the others." That’s the kind of lazy, cinematic hand-waving that would make a Sopranos writer blush. Where’s the tension? Where’s the nuance? The synopsis could apply to any number of Yan Lianke’s earlier works—The Four Books, Dream of Ding Village—and still feel like a generic blurb for a Dallas knockoff. The only thing that makes this synopsis remotely interesting is the implication that Yan’s "darkly comic voice" will somehow salvage the mess. But if this is his attempt at a Breaking Bad for the Chinese countryside, he’s already lost me. The Breaking Bad of rural China would require at least a modicum of moral ambiguity, a character arc that doesn’t devolve into "poor people are just desperate," and a plot that doesn’t feel like it was cobbled together during a 3 a.m. binge of The Godfather Part II. The mention of "class tensions" is the real giveaway here—because if this is going to be another Yan Lianke novel about the crushing weight of modernity on the Chinese working class, then fine, but where’s the originality? Where’s the Twilight of the Gods? Where’s the The Book of Chameleons? The synopsis doesn’t even hint at the kind of surreal, grotesque humor that made The Four Books feel like a cross between American Psycho and a Maoist propaganda film. Instead, it sounds like a Desperate Housewives set in a village where the only thing more toxic than the gossip is the air quality. And yet—here’s the thing—if Yan Lianke can somehow make this family’s desperation feel as inescapable as the Chernobyl exclusion zone, then maybe, just maybe, he’ll pull it off. But right now, the synopsis reads like a bad pitch for a Big Little Lies spin-off in which the wives of Gaotian Town decide to murder each other over who gets to host the next MasterChef China finale. The real crime here is the vagueness. The synopsis doesn’t even attempt to define what "success" means in this context—is it money? Is it escape? Is it just the quiet, suffocating dread of being trapped in a town where the only way up is through someone else’s body? The lack of specificity is maddening. It’s like reading a New Yorker profile of a cult leader where the only detail provided is that "the followers were unhappy." Where’s the Tangerine Dream score? Where’s the Blade Runner neon? Where’s the Paranoid Park energy of a town where everyone’s a suspect? The synopsis could be describing a Jerry Springer episode from 1998, and no one would bat an eye. And yet—here’s the thing I can’t ignore—if Yan Lianke can make this family’s unraveling feel as inevitable as the Titanic’s collision with the iceberg, then perhaps this will be his most devastating work yet. But right now, it feels like a novel waiting for a premise, a character waiting for a voice, a town waiting for a disaster that hasn’t happened yet. The only thing that saves it from being a complete dumpster fire is the implication that Yan’s prose will be as sharp as a guillotine blade. If he can make this family’s desperation feel as poetic as The Waste Land, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll reconsider my life choices. But for now? I need to go select floral arrangements for my book launch. The roses are overrated. 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