Rental House is a short novel that stitches together two vignettes in the life of a married couple, each one documenting a different getaway vacation. Keru (“like Peru”) is the American-born daughter of Chinese parents who emigrated to Minnesota; Nate grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and is the first in his family to attend college. They meet at Yale and date for seven years (Keru working as a consultant, Nate working on his PhD) before finally tying the knot. Now they live in New York, parents to a huge black-and-white sheepdog named Mantou.
The vacations – the first is a summer trip from NYC down to the lower Cape, the second a leaf-peeping getaway in the Catskills set five years later – serve as catalysts to surface a raft of deep-seated questions about who we are and who we strive to be. Is there inherent value to suffering – is sacrifice the cornerstone of a respectable life? As adults, what do we owe to the families and communities that raised us? Is wealth a scorecard for success, or a red flag for superficial materialism?
Keru’s rigid, uncompromising parents and Nate’s rural Appalachian family obviously don’t see eye-to-eye, so Keru and Nate need to figure out their own answers, fighting against the undertow of inherited cultural baggage and parental expectations. This could be a trite, ultimately shallow kind of exercise – “gee, it sure is hard, but we have to set aside all those prejudices and be tolerant, open-minded citizens of the world.” But Rental House avoids that trap. The truth is that even if that’s the north star we want to steer by, real life is messy and nuanced, and our day-to-day interactions are with individuals, not ideals. Being unbiased isn’t the same thing as being kind.
What makes Rental House amazing is that it gets into all of this without ever indulging in long internal monologs or abstract navel-gazing. Weike Wang’s prose is terse, sharp, and aggressively economical, like observations jotted down during a lab experiment. It’s really quite a flex how much she manages to convey with a simple declarative sentence. For example,
“They might even have texted each other and met up once, though probably not twice.”
– or –
“They returned to the city refreshed, or so they tell people, but diminished, which they keep to themselves.”
I can imagine that this relentless deadpan tone might land flat for some, but I was absolutely in love with it. It was impressive how often a deft turn of phrase opened the door to all kinds of reflection and rumination – the issues and themes are big ones, but the story itself is lean, almost minimal.
Rental House teases out feelings and attitudes that we often work hard to gloss over in the name of being polite or just getting along. There’s a lot of emphasis on racial and cultural identity, and it’s certainly not the first book (or article) to dig into the uncomfortable assumptions and stigmas around WMAF and DINK relationships in the US. But there are more universal themes here too, about family and relationships, and the risks and consequences of both speaking up and remaining silent.
If there’s a downside to the book, it’s that while Keru and Nate are very believable as individuals, it’s hard to relate to them as a real couple. I have a great sense of where the friction points are in their marriage, what wounds they nurse and what goes left unsaid. But I don’t know why they’re married at all – what do they love, adore, or at least need from each other? It’s not passion, and it doesn’t even appear to be emotional support or validation. Are they together just because they both fear being alone? Because marriage felt like a social or cultural obligation? I’m really not sure.
In fairness, I didn’t dwell on it too much while I was reading – it’s a short book, and there are plenty of other aspects to ponder (plus, the writing itself was a real treat!) But in hindsight it feels a little odd, and if you’re looking for a read that offers some real insight into the emotional dynamics of a romantic relationship, that’s one thing that Rental House doesn’t deliver. Another is closure. Keru and Nate do change in the five years between these trips – they’re more seasoned, more secure, and also both a little more disillusioned and unhappy. But the bungalow in the Catskills isn’t the end of their journey; it’s just another stop along that road.
If you’re looking for more of a traditional plot to follow, or are craving a sense of resolution (for better or for worse) when you turn that last page, Rental House is not a good fit. On the other hand, it’s a great selection if you’re in the mood for literary fiction that offers plenty of food for thought about cultural and ethnic stereotypes, expectations, and identity, served up in a crisp, stark writing style that leaves a bit of the heavy lifting for the reader. If you’re the kind of person who spends time unpacking all the tacit sociocultural baggage that freights the distinction between “immigrant” and “expat,” for example, this one’s for you.
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