These Memories Do Not Belong to Us: A Constellation Novel

Chinese Canadian writer Ma debuts with a chilling dystopian novel in stories. In the distant future, China has conquered America and renamed itself Qin, after its first emperor, and other people’s memories can be bought or sold as entertainment. In a framing device, a man inherits his late mother’s collection of memories, which constitute the novel in the form of interconnected stories. The memories are illegal in Qin due to their depictions of interracial relationships and revelations about the government’s abuses. “Patience and Virtue and Chess and America” finds a 17-year-old boy named Hao visiting his former private school turned orphanage in the former Washington, D.C., to bring back to Qin a white American girl named Jill with whom he played chess. Hao returns in “After the Bloom” as a watchmaker living in Qin, where he takes a young female writer under his wing during a deadly Covid-like pandemic, which the government takes draconian steps to contain. Throughout, Ma bravely and lucidly portrays how an authoritarian regime seeks to control people’s minds, and how people’s lives can be commodified by technology. This timely work leaves readers with much to chew on. Agent: Michelle Brower, Trellis Literary Management. (Aug.)