HANDING OVER HONG KONG

By Paul Gray

Novels do not ordinarily dabble with too much exactitude in current events or upcoming headlines; fiction writers hope, after all, that their work will outlast the rapid stream of passing fancies. But Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong (Houghton Mifflin; 243 pages; $23) arrives as a noteworthy exception to that rule. On June 30 Britain will end its long-term ownership and control of Hong Kong and hand over the colony to the People's Republic of China. Hot off the presses, Kowloon Tong offers Theroux's imaginative version of how some Hong Kong residents have fared--and will fare--in the face of such a monumental and imminent change.

Neville Mullard, 43, lives with his widowed mother Betty in a Hong Kong house called, in honor of their native land, Albion Cottage. The late George Mullard left his wife and son, nicknamed Bunt, half-ownership of Imperial Stitching, a garment-manufacturing firm located in an eight-story building in Hong Kong's Kowloon Tong district. The unexpected death, in early 1996, of Mr. Chuck, the refugee from China who co-founded and owns the other half of Imperial Stitching, leaves the whole shebang to the Mullards, mother and son. Their pleasure in assuming full control is dampened somewhat by the prospect of the upcoming change in Hong Kong, which worried folks around town call "the Chinese take-away."

Sure enough, Bunt is soon approached by a Mr. Hung, quite evidently from the mainland, who says he wants to buy the Imperial Stitching building. Bunt replies airily, "I'll never sell it. Don't even think about it. You'll just make yourself miserable." This answer, Bunt soon learns, is not only inappropriate but also comically misguided about who will be making whom miserable in the Hong Kong of the future. Bunt's mother wants to sell--Hung's offer will bring them roughly [pounds]1 million, or $1.6 million--and when her son objects to Hung's strong-arm negotiations, she says, "Oh, pack it in! I could do business with that man."

This paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher's comment after meeting Mikhail Gorbachev pretty much tips Theroux's hand in Kowloon Tong. He is aiming at broad political satire, and nearly any target will do. Both the Mullards are contemptible. She is a snob about all things British who calls the Chinese "Chinky-Chonks" and tells her host at a Chinese restaurant, "Nothing personal, but we don't touch Chinese food. Never did. All the grease, all the glue. And it's always so wet. Makes me want to spew." Bunt, for his part, is a pathetic mama's boy who can find release and some measure of independence only with Hong Kong bar girls, "the happy hello-goodbye of urgent sex." Hung, the avatar of the new Hong Kong order, is a brute: "Brandy was gleaming on Mr. Hung's lips. He looked drunk, his face pinkish and raw, his eyes boiled, and he was smiling in a vicious way as he chewed with his mouth open." And if bad table manners are not disgusting enough, Hung may be guilty of murdering one of Imperial Stitching's working women.

Readers who like to take sides will not find palatable choices in Kowloon Tong. Theroux's distaste for everyone involved in his tale registers clearly and often brilliantly. But it seems reasonable to hope that his vision of the near future is unduly dyspeptic, and that fiction will be stranger than truth.

--By Paul Gray