WINNER OF THE TAIWAN LITERATURE AWARD

"An uncompromising, unsentimental, slyly humorous novel." IRISH TIMES

“A haunting drama of a Taiwanese family’s efforts to rise out of poverty.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Keith Chen, the desperately yearned for second son of a traditional Taiwanese family with five daughters, refuses to play the role his parochial parents would cast him in. Instead, he chooses to make a life for himself in cosmopolitan Berlin, where he finally finds acceptance as a young gay man.

The novel is set about a decade later, on Ghost Festival, the Day of Deliverance. After Keith’s release from a maximum security prison, he has nowhere to go but home. With his parents gone, his siblings married, mad, on the lam, or dead, there is nothing left for him there, so it seems. As he explores his uncanny home town, we learn what tore his family apart, and, more importantly, the truth behind the terrible crime Keith committed in Germany.

Told in a myriad of voices—both living and dead—and moving through time with deceptive ease, Ghost Town is a mesmerizing story of family secrets, countryside superstitions, and the search for identity amid a clash of cultures.

"An uncompromising, unsentimental, slyly humorous novel." - Irish Times

"Chen offers a haunting... drama of a Taiwanese family’s efforts to rise out of poverty." - Publishers Weekly

"“Chen’s characters are vibrant and quirky, and his writing style is consistently precise and sharp; Taiwanese cultural issues are framed in enlightening fashion.”" - Buzz Magazine

"“Wildly poetic, it sings and dances. This book is magical, it is truly poetic. It is captivating, it is painful, it is rich and vibrant.”" - Books and Bao

"“Rich and complicated.”" - The News Lens

"“Ghost Town is a masterpiece of twenty-first century Taiwanese 'native soil' literature.”" - United Daily News (Taiwan)

"“Magical, fierce, pungent, and cruel.”" - BIOS Monthly