Review of Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw available on Amazon

And now, moving over to Asia, we are privileged to be reviewing Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw. Oh yes, Asia – Southeast Asia, to be precise, and to be even more precise, Shanghai, China, where this story is set. By the way, book lovers, I have to ask at this point: how many Asian books have you ever read? Think on that one.

Anyway, up until I read this one, I had just read about…well, let me see…zero books by an authentic Asian author! Why is that? I can’t really tell, but I believe there are probably a number of us out there who like to read wide, yet haven’t picked up something oriental – perhaps it just hasn’t been brought to the forefront of our consciousness that there are Asian books out there (written in English of course), and particularly good ones too, like Five Star Billionaire. But before we get into the book, I’d like everyone who reads this to search out a book by this author or any Asian book at all and read today. It is quite fascinating seeing through the differences in culture and geography into the amazing similarities between us and people in distant places.

Yep, you could say that that’s the world as we see it today.

First, a look at the author…

Tash Aw was born in Taipei, Taiwan, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and ended up studying law in England where he now writes from. His debut novel The Harmony Silk Factory was published in 2005. It was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Whitbread Brook Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). It has thus far been translated into twenty languages.

Tash’s second book Map of the Invisible World was released in 2009 and was followed in 2013 by Five Star Billionaire which has already been longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

Now, the book…

Meet Phoebe, the illegal migrant worker; Gary, the down-and-out former pop star; Yinghui, the one-time social activist turned hard-working businesswoman; Justin, the clinically depressed scion of a wealthy family in Kuala Lumpur; and Walter, who writes books about how to become a billionaire while pretending to be one himself.

All of the characters, like Tash himself, are ethnic Chinese with roots in Malaysia, each one of them real and ambitious with a compelling sense of purpose, and in the end, they are all bound to yield to a sixth character – gleaming and alluring but ruthless and unforgiving Shanghai itself – that steals the show, rewarding graft and deception while smashing the genuine aspirations of those who dare to hold them under the full weight of a money-stuffed Chinese dream that, as Tash depicts it, is every bit as illusory and potentially malign as its American counterpart.

While Phoebe searches fruitlessly for her ‘soul mate’ (preferably a stinking rich man swayed by her air of innocence in a city that has none), Walter has his eyes on a mega-property deal and in consonance with his billionaire principles, has forged a business partnership with Yinghui, once the girlfriend and presumed fiancé of Justin's brother, CS, of the wealthy Lim family in Kuala Lumpur.

Justin arrives in Shanghai on a quest to increase his family's real-estate holdings, eventually making a bid for the same property Walter has eyes for, a site occupied by faded historic buildings that the Lim family plans to transform into a modern Shanghai landmark.

When his efforts are scotched by Walter, however, Justin - who always harbored a secret love for Yinghui during the years she was dating his brother - becomes listless and depressed and cuts himself off from his family and their collapsing business empire. He yearns to tell Yinghui how he feels about her - but never does.

As for Yinghui, she is still smarting from being dumped years ago by CS and cut off by his family after her father, a deputy minister, was accused of corruption. With Walter, she is looking for more than just a business relationship but a weekend getaway at a luxurious hotel in Hangzhou with the suave, immaculately dressed Walter convinces her of what Phoebe suspected while dating him – his asexuality is complete and unassailable.

Then there is Gary, the reckless and unhappy pop idol whose career has come to a standstill. Having once filled arenas with screaming, adoring fans, his story is indeed a sad one because all he is good for now is singing in shopping malls by day and surfing the Internet for companionship by night, although, like just about everyone else he encounters in cyberspace, he does not use his real name. Ironically, when he finally does tell Phoebe - with whom he has become infatuated - who he really is, she refuses to believe him.

That's Shanghai, the author seems to suggest - everybody is pretending to be somebody they're not, and no one cares about who you really are. Yinghui is brought to this realization as she seeks a bank loan to finance her joint project with Walter:

“Yinghui recognized a restlessness in the banker’s face, a mixture of excitement and apprehension that people exhibited when still new in Shanghai, in search of something, even though they could not articulate what that something was – maybe it was money or status, or, God forbid, even love, but whatever it was, Shanghai was not about to give it to them.”

While there is no denying Tash’s mastery and expertise at marching his characters through the plot, one starts to get suspicious of all the coincidences. For instance, Phoebe, a poor village girl determinedly after the good life in the city, religiously reads Walter's tutorials on success, and then the two begin dating after meeting online; at the same time, Phoebe has also hooked up with Gary in an online chat room for lonely hearts, snagged a good job at one of Yinghui's businesses and found a one-room apartment on the more decadent side of the same building in which Justin lives.

Another problem with the plot is that the novel's ending becomes apparent well before it actually arrives, undermining the tension Tash has been so good at building from the start.

That said, I believe the author has achieved his purpose here – moving through this four hundred-plus-page novel, the reader is engaged on a tour around the ‘Chinese dream’, being constantly challenged to discern for themselves where the illusion ends and real life begins. Recommended for everyone who likes to be taken on a wild ride every once in a while.

Get this amazing book at amazon in any format you like right now!