In this haunting debut, Bumas explores the defining of
relationships and how the quality of human intimacy reveals much
about the places we call home. All eight stories in this collection
lend an ethereal element to situations that at first glance seem
familiar, depicting men and women attracted and confused by friends
and lovers and who find themselves equally lost in their given time
and place. As the characters struggle with conflicts that range
from forbidden sexual attraction to making a new best friend to
unplanned pregnancy to expressing solidarity with Chinese students
shortly before the uprising at Tiananmen Square, the question of
where and how we live in Manhattan's East Village, a provincial
Chinese city, and a conservative college campus become inextricably
linked. Sometimes a story revolves around the importance of human
relationship and demonstrates that without it, any possible
connection to society at large, the psyche of the population, even
culture and history and hope for the future, is thwarted. For
example, a young Western scientist studying water quality in canals
in Hangzhou, China, likes to think of this small city as a home she
has come to know well; but when a Chinese co-worker she feels
especially close to gets relocated for suspected sexual involvement
with her, the customs, food, and the purposefulness of her work
become inconceivably foreign ("Head in Fog on Water"). At other
times, it is the success of a human relationship that makes an
environment bearable: A gay man poses as his lesbian friend's
fiance to get her through a sticky family gathering ("Your
Cordially Requested Presence"). Bumas woos with strong characters,
wry tones, political complexity, and a unique voice. This
collection doesn't bowl you over - it gets under your skin. (Kirkus
Reviews)
With the practiced eye of a traveler at large, E. Shaskan Bumas
portrays characters struggling to define their relationships to
each other and to their time. Whether scientists or artisans, punks
or new-agers, single mothers or students, activists or children in
harm's way, Bumas's characters fill these stories with heart and
subversive humor. The Price of Tea in China depicts places as
far-flung as a Manhattan ghetto and a provincial Chinese city
through an exploration of human relationships that makes each
location both foreign and familiar. In "Flag of Fire", an American
teacher becomes caught up in the lives of students engaged in
China's pro-democracy movement. "Your Cordially Requested Presence"
reveals a man's humorous sufferings as he acts the part of fiance
for a lesbian friend at her cousin's wedding. "The Attraction to
Gravity" brings us a young man whose growing appreciation of his
girlfriend's small daughter is threatened by her father's
reappearance. In "Cupid's Carriers", a student chronicles college
life in the era of punk rock through a journal that takes on a life
of its own. In "Emerging", a neighborhood's web of inhabitants is
torn apart by a police riot, and in "Spare the Child", a man
describes the unplanned pregnancy of his girlfriend with biting
dislike.
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