Stevie‘s review of Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Contemporary Asian American Fiction published by Berkley 27 Apr 21
I generally like intergenerational family stories, especially those that showcase the differences between cultures, traditions, and expectations. However, something about this one fell flat for me. Meddelin Chan comes from a large Indonesian-Chinese family in which the women seem fated to lose their menfolk – both husbands and sons – whether to death or desertion and so band together to support one another. Although determined to escape her mother and aunties through university and beyond, Meddelin finds herself also subject to the family curse, first through her college boyfriend moving away and then through the man her mother sets her up with, dying on their first date. Believing the man to be pivotal to the success of a large wedding her family is catering and photographing – amongst other activities – Meddelin calls on her aunts to help her conceal the body until after the event. Things just go downhill from there, with potentially hilarious consequences.
Sadly, the humour didn’t really work for me, since a lot of it depended on the state of intoxication of the groomsmen and, to a lesser extent, the other guests. There was also a secondary plot involving the criminal plans of the deceased guy and his accomplice, which felt a little too convoluted, as do the attempts of Meddelin and her family to repeatedly hide his body. Also, maybe it’s a US vs UK issue, but I had a hard time visualising how they could hide the body in a cooler box and transport it around the place. I kept imagining the orange and white cooler box my family used for picnics in the 1970s and puzzling how a whole dead human would fit in there, no matter how carefully folded they were.
On the plus side, I liked the flashbacks to Meddelin’s relationship with Nathan and the contrast between his family and hers, and I appreciated the ultimate resolution of the fact that the bride from the central wedding story was marrying completely the wrong person. I’m sure this book would work well for a lot of other people – just not me – and I definitely feel like I learned a few new facts about other cultures and their wedding traditions by reading the story.
Grade: C
Summary:
What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?
You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!
When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—”Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream flowers.
But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?
Read an excerpt.
