The Double Life of Benson Yu by Kevin Chong
Kindly suspend logic while reading The Double Life of Bension Yu by Kevin Chong. The story does not whip around between alien worlds. The story is a calm retelling of Benson Yu’s childhood.
Or is it?
When he was twelve, Benny’s poh poh (grandmother) died in hospital. For many years he had been living with her because his mother was dead, and his father was no good. His burdensome childhood was safely anchored by the old Chinese traditions commonly upheld in Chinatown. As a withdrawn, artistic child, school bullies harassed him for his academic success. He understood his world and accepted it.
Benson Yu is a once-successful comic book writer. Although his characters were loved and his comic books sold well, his inexperience resulted in a writer’s contract that left almost nothing for him. His family lived in a fairly nice house, they had a very nice car, and life was good enough. His wife, Trina, had a good job at the university, earning the majority of their income. Their little daughter was delightful.
This time, Benson is writing a proper book based on his youth, complete with character development and universal themes. He makes Benny a few years younger, and his experiences are designed to create empathy. The narrative that we read is a subtle interplay between the novel and the novel writing. Sometimes we are fully with Benny, then we are reading Benson’s interior discussion about plot developments.
As some novelists do complain (or celebrate), Benson’s characters escape him! They won’t do what he had planned. He has deliberately created them different from the people of his youth, and they make different choices. And then after a complicated disaster in Benny’s life, he comes to live with Benson. Suspend logic, please. The Double Life of Benson Yu explores how an older man might look on his youthful self and might handle the joys and traumas there. Also, it explores how we can use our internal voice to change what might seem inevitable.
The novel is written with a light touch. Similarly, the reader must stay elevated above the ordinary to float along with the currents of an imagined life.
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