Pun Salad

A few years back, I read John Derbyshire's Prime Obsession, a 2003 book (of all things) about the Riemann Hypothesis, an unproved mathematical conjecture. And (of course) I'd been reading his stuff over the years at National Review. He's probably the only conservative writer who's appeared in a Bruce Lee movie.

So I picked up his novel, written back in 1996. As you might expect from a math-geek conservative Kung Fu movie actor, it's unusual. The first-person narrator is Chai, and he's had an interesting life: Born in Red China, got caught up in the Cultural Revolution, became a Red Guard, escaped to Hong Kong in disgust, lucked into a job in a bank. His unexpected talents propel him upward in the financial hierarchy, and he emigrates to America, settling down in a comfy bourgeois existence with a wife and a kid on Long Island.

That's probably a good book right there, but Chai develops a slightly unusual hobby for a Chinese immigrant bank executive: he becomes obsessed with Calvin Coolidge. He reads everything he can find about Silent Cal; he and the family make a pilgrimage to Vermont to check out the family homestead.

But in addition, Chai becomes aware that his one true love in China, Selina, is also in America. And Selina becomes an obsession as well. These two threads intersect unexpectedly right at the end of the book, in a charming manner.

Without spoiling things too much, you can read the book two ways: taking Chai's narrative at face value, accepting his interpretation of events. Or you can pick up on the clues Derbyshire scatters throughout the text, and discover for yourself what really happened. (And, frankly, I didn't figure things out until a few hours after I finished the book, started to think about it a bit, and … Oh, yeah. Duh.)