Given the attention in the US press these days to the problem of bullying in high schools, this novel -- runner up in Amazon's 2009 Breakthrough Contest -- could not be more timely, nor indeed, more suitable for a particular audience, that of young adults. In addition, it is beautifully written and has a plot that will scare your pants off. With the events of Columbine High School and even the tragedies at Virginia Technical College on the minds of today's students, Andrew Xia Fukuda's story will be a cautionary tale.

Fukuda clearly knows his high school world and what it means to be an outsider among a potpourri of cliques and gangs. He has good background for his insights: he identifies himself as half-Japanese and half-Chinese, was himself raised in Hong Kong and later, after a BA in history from Cornell, was a counselor to immigrant youth in Manhattan's Chinatown.

The setting for this thriller is Ashland, New York, a small almost totally Caucasian and Christian town with a population that is naturally reflected in its high school, Slackenkill High. The school has always been a top concern for Ashland's citizens, but becomes intensely more so when some of its students -- the alpha males of key cliques -- start to "disappear". The narrator of the novel, Xing (Star) Xu and his good friend, Naomi, are the only Chinese students in the school and their parents are very much in the minority in the town.

Xing tells the story in his own voice and he seems to be very honest about what he sees and hears going on about him, but perhaps -- at first -- is not so honest about himself and his own feelings. This gives him room to grow in the novel, and grow he does. He's a complex kid, with more experience than most his age. His observations are somewhat mean, but they also seem justified. Inept teachers -- check; bumbling administrators --check; stereotyping students -- check.

Xing is not close to his mother, and can't be because she works two jobs, one as a "masseuse" and another as cleaning lady. She's burdened by her responsibilities to keep herself and Xing surviving because Xing's father, an artist and the one who most strongly desired to bring his family to America, was killed when struck down by an automobile a few years before Xing's story begins.

What this means for Xing is that he is very much unsupervised and free to bicycle here and there about town according to his whims and needs. His main haunts are town's library, and the food stall in the local mall where his friend Naomi, whose parents work in the Chinese restaurant there. Since Xing is pretty much invisible to his classmates -- some don't even know if he can speak English -- he relies a lot on Naomi for moral support and for school gossip. Although he was the one who tutored Naomi in English and helped her integrate into the Slackenkill world (not without reasons of his own), she is now the one who is most fully involved in the school and in town. For one thing, she has become a key figure in a local Christian youth group, an institution Xing has scant interest in.

Xing's secret talent, his gift, is an ability to sing. On the strength of this ability, his father decided he must get Xing to America where, so Xing's father believed, Xing's voice would make his fortune. A teacher at Slackenkill, a Mr. Matthewman, recognizes Xing's gift and nurtures Xing to the point that, if there were a level playing field, he would be the lead singer in the school's annual Christmas (of course) musical and at last get some recognition and the respect he deserves -- shades of American Idol.

To tell more of the story from this point would be unfair to both author and reader. But rest assured you will be satisfied on many levels -- vivid descriptions, keen character portrayals, a smashing plot -- if you pick the book up. Just don't imagine you're going to sleep peacefully after reading it!

We await the movie.

(Crossing should not be confused with Crossings by Chuang Hua, a more adult approach to the issues of cultural transplantation published Northeastern University Press in 1986.)

Robert H. Abel
28 April 2010

Robert H. Abel is a USA-based writer who writes frequently on subjects related to China. He has published three novels (including Riding a Tiger) and three collections of stories.