美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Beijing Payback,' The Immigrant Experience, But Make It A Crime Thriller（在线收听）

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The author Daniel Nieh has tried on more careers than a model tries on outfits. In fact, Nieh has been an international model. He has also worked as a Chinese interpreter. And both of those jobs inform his debut novel "Beijing Payback."

DANIEL NIEH: As a model and as a translator, you're always behind the scenes. You know, you get backstage. You're a fly on the wall. You're there to be seen or to be heard but maybe not to speak. And so you get to witness all kinds of different bizarre situations.

SHAPIRO: "Beijing Payback" is full of those situations - glitzy nightclubs full of models and mobsters, strip mall massage parlors, the underground layer of a Chinese gang kingpin. This thriller travels from Southern California to China, and Daniel Nieh's work as an interpreter came in handy bridging those two worlds.

NIEH: I mean, as a translator, interpreter, in both of those roles, you're working on communication. And there's no such thing as 100% accuracy, either when you're talking about a document or when you're talking about when people speak to each other. So especially when you're working doing consecutive or simultaneous interpretation, you have to be really on your toes about cultural sensitivities and reading moods and that kind of thing. And overall, that's the kind of sensitivity and attention to detail that really fuels good prose and good fiction.

SHAPIRO: One of the central relationships in this story is between your protagonist, Victor Li, who grew up in the U.S. and his Chinese-born father, who, we should mention, on page one of the book we discover has been killed. How did you envision this relationship?

NIEH: This is a situation that is really universal in one way, which is that when you're in your teens or maybe in your early 20s like Victor is, at a certain point, you realize that your parents aren't perfect. And you stop worshiping them, and maybe you start resenting them or resisting them.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

NIEH: You know, and then that usually for people evolves into a phase three where, you know, maybe later on in your 20s or in your 30s, you accept them, you forgive them, you feel grateful to them. So that's a universal story that I myself have experienced. It's just a part of coming of age.

At the same time, it's more complicated in this situation because here is someone who is born in a completely different context - this is the father - and he's never really shared that story with his son. And so his son is in the process throughout this book of discovering his father's background and childhood. And that's kind of the crux of the novel.

SHAPIRO: That also seems so true of the immigrant experience, where the children of immigrants often feel like their parents' experience in the other country is kind of shrouded in mystery. And in your book, not only is it shrouded in mystery, that mystery conceals secrets involving organized crime and, you know, massive conspiracies. But there does seem to be a really universal kernel of truth in there about being the child of an immigrant.

NIEH: Absolutely. And the thing here is in my book, that's couched in this thrilling plot because I wanted to write an exciting page-turning crime thriller. But for people like me who are the children of immigrants, that seems almost universally true. And I grew up in this environment where, you know, I had a very loving father who did a lot of parenting to me, who took a lot of interests in my interests. But he never spoke about his childhood in China. He never spoke about the crazy things he had experienced. And I didn't know that he had come to this country as a refugee until I was in my 20s.

SHAPIRO: Really?

NIEH: People, when they immigrate, they often feel like a - almost like a sense that they have to hide who they were. But the truth is - and it's dramatized in this book - but the truth is most of the people who have come to this country have some crazy stories to tell about...

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

NIEH: ...How they got here and a completely different upbringing than the children who they raise in a completely different environment.

SHAPIRO: What did you learn about your father when you had that conversation in your 20s? I mean, what is his story?

NIEH: It's a really - it's a really good story because my father was from an aristocratic background in Shanghai. So he grew up the descendant of a very famous general and of another mayor. And they had servants and a big house. But when he was 8 years old, that all came to an end because he was part of the status quo, and communists took over China in 1949. And he and his family moved to Hong Kong where they would be safe.

And so once he was in Hong Kong, he was just sort of more an ordinary person. And that's where he spent his formative years from around 8 years old to about 20. And then he moved to the United States. And all of a sudden, he was an undergrad studying engineering at Southern Methodist University in Texas. And then we're talking about the 1960s, so he was a complete fish out of water. And I think that diversity of experience in the first three decades of his life really shaped him into an extremely flexible and extremely courageous person. And that's one of the reasons I've always looked up to him and, you know, been interested in having my own adventures and I think probably being a little less averse to risk than I might otherwise be.

SHAPIRO: And up until the time you had that conversation with your father when you were in your 20s, did you try to broach the subject and he didn't want to? Or was it just understood that this was something you don't talk about in the family?

NIEH: You know, I had such a great childhood that I never realized these things were secrets. It's just I didn't think of my dad as, like, a storyteller. But the thing about that is that means that things go unsaid. You never realize you never have a chance to explore what makes you maybe a little different than your peers. And so that's what I was always curious about. But my dad never shut me down on those things. It's just not an area of interest to him. He doesn't like talking about it. And I never had really - I didn't even know what to ask as a kid.

SHAPIRO: You know, I'm thinking there is a world in which given your family history, you would write a sort of reverential story of migration. And instead, you've got this kind of, like, gun-slinging, bodies piling up, almost, like, action movie thriller in which your father, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, is paralleled with this figure who was, like, deep in organized crime.

NIEH: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, my parents only read the book this year. And I was like look, Mom and Dad, this isn't you.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

NIEH: And...

SHAPIRO: Thank goodness.

NIEH: But - yeah, right. And - but that said, the father in the book does have this background in organized crime. And he's done some bad stuff. At the same time, the point of the book is to show that he had his reasons, and he's a such a loving father and really the core, the rock in Victor's life. And that's why it's so crazy for Victor to discover these things about his father's past.

And, you know, if there's a moral core of the book, it's the idea that there are shades of grey that if you don't know the whole context of somebody's actions, you can't say for sure that this person who grew up in this really chaotic environment had a choice to do anything other than the crimes - what we consider crimes now and, of course, were crimes in China at the time - you know, whether or not those things were - I don't know if they're justified, but if there's a good explanation for them.

SHAPIRO: So how did your parents react once they read the book?

NIEH: You know, my dad's Chinese. And my mom is Jewish. So they just really want to make sure that I have health insurance.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

NIEH: So, you know, they're glad I got a good book deal. And they thought it was a fun ride.

SHAPIRO: The content was a secondary consideration.

NIEH: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

NIEH: Yeah, yeah.

SHAPIRO: That's author Daniel Nieh. His new book is called "Beijing Payback."

Thanks for joining us.

NIEH: Thank you, Ari. I appreciate it.

(SOUNDBITE OF CULTS SONG, "OH MY GOD")