As an aspiring fiction writer in the early 1990s, I often thought about what a queer—or as I thought of it then, gay—story might look like. Back then, much of the gay fiction I read consisted of earnest stories about young people soul-searching and wrestling with their identities. In other words, the coming out story. Several decades later, there’s been a marked expansion of general queer fiction and, in particular, gay fiction, which has branched out in all sorts of interesting directions. And yet the coming out story remains impressively durable. It’s tempting to place Tash Aw’s new novel The South (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025) in this category, yet the author displays serious narrative smarts defying expectations and tropes commonly associated with this genre.
The South takes place in a country that is not named but is assumed to be Malaysia and features a sensitive young man named Jay who travels with his family to a rundown farm they’ve inherited after the death of Jay’s grandparent. At this farm, city boy Jay finds first love with the dashing country boy Chuan, the self-assured son of the property’s manager. The relationship helps Jay achieve a sense of selfhood that promises to outlast the usual parameters of a summer romance. In a sense, he’s coming out to himself.
Aw adds several elements to the somewhat familiar—if undeniably engaging—romance storyline to make it fresh. He shifts point of view from first to third person. He explores his setting with welcome depth, showing both details of the natural world as well as far-reaching effects of globalization in this seemingly remote locale where one can also shop at 7-Eleven.
In one memorable scene, Chuan and Jay go to a night market in town and pick through knock-off clothing of famous Western brands. At one point, Chuan dismisses an imitation Lacoste shirt as “too fake,” and Jay offers this riposte: “‘What does too fake mean?’ I said. ‘Either something is fake or it isn’t.’” In reply, Chuan says, “‘I’m just looking for something fake that doesn’t look fake.’” In this savvy reversal of expectations, it’s the rural character of Chuan who imparts a worldly sense of sophistication to his presumably more cosmopolitan friend. Aw also nicely suggests that Chuan’s search for authenticity in clothing might extend to Jay as well as the boys’ relationship.
The farm itself serves as more than background for Jay and Chuan’s canoodling. In this early scene in the novel, Jay’s mother Sui reflects on the farm during their arrival:
“She has imagined this moment of return many times over the past decade, recreating every detail of the house as she approaches it: the way it perches on the low slope of the land, shrinking into the murky backdrop of the old rubber trees; the green paint on the timber cladding faded with time so that it looks barely coloured; the uneven ridge of the roof. Now, the house shimmers in the distance, hovering as if detached from the land, and because the car is juddering on the uneven dirt track, Sui is unable to fix her gaze on it, unable to gauge how far away it is. It has always seemed beyond her reach.”
This striking passage establishes the farm as a site of transformation both for the place itself and the people inhabiting it. This sets up the importance of the family backstory for the main narrative. Jay’s same-sex romance takes place within the context of his family history, the early courtship of the protagonist’s parents and the barriers they faced, and the parents’ story is surprisingly touching, as readers see the contrast between the disappointments of Jay’s parents in the narrative present and the hopefulness of their younger selves. Jay’s fiery sister Lina, who rebels against her family’s conservative expectations to study art, is another lively character whose self-assurance gives readers a glimpse of what Jay might someday become, perhaps as a result of his affair with Chuan.
With all that Aw adds to the coming out story trope, it’s interesting to note what he also withholds. Absent is the iconic “I have something to tell you” parental confrontation scene, along with dramatic expressions of bullying and homophobia. And while homophobia is present, it’s generally rendered on a quieter scale, sometimes in flashback, sometimes as an internalized struggle. Such choices are reflective of the subtle, delicate touch of Aw’s writing style, as seen in this seductive description of Chuan, who “threw his head back and poured the water into his open mouth without touching the bottle with his lips, and I could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down. Some of the water flowed down his cheeks and throat and onto his T-shirt but he didn’t mind, he was already soaked with sweat. ‘Fuck,’ he said . . . .”
At times, Aw’s writing leans too heavily on minimalism and comes off merely plain and direct, lacking in suggestion or irony: “There is not enough space on the bed for two of them to lie down on their backs, so they have to stretch out on their sides to avoid touching each other. Why this charade, when all they both wish to do is precisely to reach out and touch the body lying next to them?”
Perhaps more troubling, given all the pleasures to savor in The South, is a familiarity that creeps in as the budding romance between Jay and Chuan reaches its predestined fruition. This is not a spoiler; in a flash forward, the two characters have sex in the opening pages. The pacing and the plot beats of the love story, while appealing, feel predictable. And once the two lovers finally come together, the story loses steam. There’s some noise made about the ultimate fate of the farm as well as the parents’ relationship, but these elements don’t carry as much weight as the story of Jay and Chuan and feel less compelling.
Overall, reading The South is a pleasant diversion, much like recalling a summer vacation from one’s teenage years, with memories of youthful romance and sun-kissed pleasures. Despite a few moments of heartbreak or sunburn, little harm has been caused.
