This is a title I highlighted at the start of the year. It was certainly a debut novel which grabbed my attention from its pre-publication description.
The first thing that really impresses is the quality of the writing. The author describes himself as a queer immigrant who lives in New York and the cross-cultural elements and LGBTQ+ sensibility is evident. Central to the novel is a location- The Workers' Cinema in Mawei City in post-Socialist China at some point in the 1980s. This is a down at heel venue frequented by (often married) men in order to pick up other men whilst a small selection of (often war) films play continuously which nobody (with the exception of the Projectionist) is interested in. The novel features characters who frequented the cinema, worked at it or were affected by the behaviour of the men searching for love in the darkness.
This shadowy world is beautifully conjured up by the author who would surely have been too young to recall such venues (I did keep having the image of the Scala in King's Cross from around the same time period creeping into my mind).
Some of the key characters from this section move to New York and struggle to adapt with poverty amongst apparent plenty, unemployment and exploitation, racism and green card marriages to deal with but over the decades the Workers' Cinema still maintains a hold over these characters as guilt, ghosts, lust and loss permeate their daily lives.
Things do shift around a bit time-wise and there was the odd moment when I wasn't sure when things were happening but we very clearly move towards a section set during the Pandemic and afterwards. There's a short piece of first-person narrative but it's predominantly third-person and increasingly features two women, Yan Hua and Bao Mei who briefly encountered one another at the cinema.
Writing is strong, plot-wise I felt it tailed off just slightly towards the end when I wasn't sure about some of the older character's motivations and it felt we were slightly being taken around in the same circles but this is an impressive debut with the author thoroughly impressing on this occasion and showing much potential for the future.
Cinema Love will be published in the UK by John Murray Press on 9th May 2024. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.
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