The Disinherited: A Novel

by Han Ong

Manila, 2000. Forty-four-year-old Roger Caracera returns to his birthplace after nearly three decades in the United States. He has come to bury the corrupt, charismatic head of the family sugar his estranged father, Jesus. To Caracera's chagrin and pleasure, he is now viewed by his countrymen as the representative American; a local tabloid even refers to him as a General Douglas MacArthur look-alike. And when his father's will is read, Caracera is stunned to discover that he has been left half a million dollars.

Unable to live with this burdensome inheritance, he decides to give his money away. But who among the millions of needy Filipinos is he to focus on?

Traversing high and low life, societies rank and respectable, and with a cast of characters that includes a slum-dwelling boy hustler, a middle-aged American pederast, a rising Filipino tennis player, a calculating society matron, and a Peace Corps worker turned trophy wife, The Disinherited is an incisive and illuminating exploration of the impulse to do good in the world and the paradoxical harm brought on by generosity.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Philippines was his home for the first 16 years of his life, born to Chinese parents. Then he and his family immigrated to the United States. He went to high school there but dropped out only after a year. Almost immediately thereafter this high school dropout began writing plays, creating nearly 3 dozen works for the stage and he himself acted in several stage performances. In 1997, at age 29, he became one of the youngest MacArthur Fellows. Some call him a genius, comparing him to William Shakespeare, his lack of formal education not preventing him from writing topnotch plays (and novels). You look at his picture in this book and if, without knowing who he is and you're made to guess if he's a playwright/novelist or the next opponent of Manny Pacquiao, you would most likely pick the latter. He looks like a boxer, or a cargador at the pier, or a tough Mongolian warrior under Genghis Khan. That's the author Han Ong. Now, how is his work?

Many say his first novel, "Fixer Chao" (which I haven't read yet), published in 2001, is much better than this. The New York Times hailed it as a new immigrant classic, and it was named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and was also nominated for a Stephen Crane First Fiction Award. But this one, his second novel, is no slouch either.

"The Disinherited" reminds me of Jose Rizal's great Spanish-era novels, the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo except that it is in a contemporary, modern setting. The oppressors here are no longer the Spaniards and the friars but poverty and corruption. Han Ong nevertheless takes occasional snipe, like Rizal, at some of the religious practices and beliefs of the Filipinos who are predominantly Roman Catholic. Set in Manila in the 1990's his cast of characters include both the super rich and the dirt poor of the Philippine society (with a crazy woman too, like Rizal's Sisa), allowing Han Ong a delightful romp--technically flawless and occasionally shocking the reader--through the highs and lows of modern Filipino culture, taking his readers to a tour of diverse places in Manila, from the exclusive clubs for the rich, to that cheap, makeshift brothel where a teenage Filipino boy is made to dance naked before foreigners, showing his ass for his finale, with his male audience masturbating into small plastic containers the warm contents of which will be poured one-by-one to the still immobile ass, the cheeks stretched apart taut for maximum exposure.

A world-class, made-in-the-Philippines writer. It excites me to imagine what else he'll write if he comes back to the Philippines, gets older and wears eyeglasses to get away from the curse of his cargador look.

Pareng Han, tagay!

[Shelley Ettinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. I loved the writing--the twisty, contorted sentences that often arrive at a startling end I didn't see coming at the beginning--and I found his take on postcolonialism and its toll on human lives hard-hitting and absorbing. This book comes close to being a masterpiece. I'm so glad I stumbled upon it.

[Danilo DiPietro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proxy for ‘Hammer Attack’ - short story read for Ann’s book club. Disturbing and thought provoking.

[ethan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank God it's over. That is all.

[Kate]

I didn't find this enthralling. Sometimes a novel is all the more engrossing because of a lack of sympathetic characters. Here, however, it wasn't the case.