What's Scarier, Ghosts or Real Estate Prices?
Linghun Book Review
We follow Wenqi, a young girl whose brother dies in a tragic accident at a young age. Her parents are willing to do anything to bring him back, including moving to a small town called HOME, where the spirits walk amongst the living. Though they’re successful in resurrecting his ghost, Wenqi discovers that HOME isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The people in the community are so invested in the dead that they ignore the living. Social relationships breakdown as there’s constant infighting over the precious, haunted real estate. An influx of homeless folks live on the lawns of the more fortunate, waiting for a chance to get a home of their own. And behind all of it is a sadistic real estate agent, who oversees a bidding process that is best described as downright medieval.
Wenqi struggles to adapt to this new life, suspended in perpetual grief. Unlike her parents she’s more invested in moving on than living in the past. Though she’s enamored with her brother’s ghost at first, she finds that the longer he haunts their home, the more her parents neglect her and dedicate all their time toward him. The kids at school are the same way. They spend hours obsessing over dead siblings, parents, grandparents, to the point that Wenqi finds herself ostracized for her views on the dead. She effectively becomes a pariah in her community, bitterly alone and with no one to turn to, that is until Liam enters the fray. Liam’s one of the many homeless children in HOME, waiting for a shot to get a home of their own. He introduces himself as an affable, caring boy, but has ulterior motives for becoming her friend.
Ai Jiang’s prose is sonorous and deeply observant. She brings speculative fiction and ghost stories into the modern era, while staying true to the genre. Linghun is perfect for anyone who’s ever been horrified by ghosts or real estate prices or both. This prescient novel is an exciting debut by a young novelist and I look forward to reading more of their work in the future.