Excess Baggage: A Novel

Excess Baggage is Karen Ma’s exciting debut novel. The story follows two Chinese sisters, one raised in China during the desolate Cultural Revolution; the other in Japan during the freewheeling years of bubble capitalism. They reunite as adults in Tokyo in the early 1990s and their family history soon catches up with them. Zhang Peiyin, ‘the forgotten’ sister left behind in China, is hell-bent on making up for lost time after growing up with little more than political slogans and has abandoned her children to join her family in Japan, imagining riches, fame and comfort. She instead receives a wary welcome from her estranged parents and insecure, competitive younger sister, Vivian, who not-so-secretly wants to drive her back to China. Not only aren’t the streets paved with gold, her family is struggling financially. As the sisters circle warily, navigating their mother’s death and other setbacks, their distrust grows, fueled by family lies and secrets. Ultimately each must confront a fundamental question: what’s the meaning of home when your roots aren’t secure? Excess Baggage is at one level a fresh look at dislocation from an Asian perspective in an Asian setting, taking off where other immigrant stories end with a more complex look than the stereotypical happily ever after reunification tale. At another level, though, it’s a universal tale about identity, alienation, love, jealousy, and family obligations in the face of adversity.