Mercy is a recent Columbia graduate with no direction in life. Margaret is (was) the mother of 3. Hilary is in a transactional marriage, wishing for a pregnancy that may never come.
They're all American expats living in bustling Hong Kong. They each have their own guilt, grief, and envy, and when their paths cross, they wreck, and save, each others' lives. A testament to the strength and compassion of women, this novel explores what it truly means to be a mother.
In my efforts to read more works by Asian American authors, I picked this book up on a whim. The jacket description (lackluster) didn't excite me, but the novel ended up being a surprise with real depth of feeling.
Above all, this novel focuses on motherhood. Who is a mother, what makes someone a mother? Lee likens it to an exclusive club, where members can recognize each other on site. Through aching child loss, unexpected pregnancies, and lack thereof, these women live through real motherhood, one that isn't soft blankets and sunny smiles but a battleground. Despite the harsh realities each of them face, Mercy, Margaret, and Hilary belong to this club, and their membership is the source of their pain and compassion.
For what the heart of the novel is about, I don't think The Expatriates needed to be set in Hong Kong. However, the setting allows Lee to introduce secondary elements to the plot and characters that wouldn't be possible in America. Most notably, she portrays the way middle-class American families easily fall into positions of privilege and power in a foreign country. As someone who's thought about becoming an expatriate myself, this novel showed me what that life might really be like and how much inherent privilege there is in an American simply saying, "Hm, America isn't for me, I think I'll try to live somewhere else."
There were some unresolved plot lines for at least each of the women, but this didn't bother me. It actually makes sense - we don't get all of the answers in real life. There are some questions we'll never know the answers to, even if we wish, with every scrap of our soul, that we did.
7/10 📕