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    An Excess Male: A Novel
    An Excess Male: A Novel
    An Excess Male: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    An Excess Male: A Novel

    Written by Maggie Shen King

    Narrated by James Chen, Tim Chiou and Elaine Kao

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    About this audiobook

    From debut author Maggie Shen King, An Excess Male is the chilling dystopian tale of politics, inequality, marriage, love, and rebellion, set in a near-future China, that further explores the themes of the classics The Handmaid's Tale and When She Woke.

    Under the One Child Policy, everyone plotted to have a son. Now 40 million of them can't find wives. 

    China’s One Child Policy and its cultural preference for male heirs have created a society overrun by 40 million unmarriageable men. By the year 2030, more than twenty-five percent of men in their late thirties will not have a family of their own. An Excess Male is one such leftover man’s quest for love and family under a State that seeks to glorify its past mistakes and impose order through authoritarian measures, reinvigorated Communist ideals, and social engineering.

    Wei-guo holds fast to the belief that as long as he continues to improve himself, his small business, and in turn, his country, his chance at love will come. He finally saves up the dowry required to enter matchmaking talks at the lowest rung as a third husband—the maximum allowed by law. Only a single family—one harboring an illegal spouse—shows interest, yet with May-ling and her two husbands, Wei-guo feels seen, heard, and connected to like never before. But everyone and everything—walls, streetlights, garbage cans—are listening, and men, excess or not, are dispensable to the State. Wei-guo must reach a new understanding of patriotism and test the limits of his love and his resolve in order to save himself and this family he has come to hold dear.

    In Maggie Shen King’s startling and beautiful debut, An Excess Male looks to explore the intersection of marriage, family, gender, and state in an all-too-plausible future.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 12, 2017
    ISBN9780062790859
    Author

    Maggie Shen King

    Maggie Shen King is the author of An Excess Male (Harper Voyager), one of The Washington Post's 5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of 2017. She is Goodreads September 2017 Debut Author the Month. Her short stories have appeared in Ecotone, ZYZZYVA, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Fourteen Hills. Her manuscript Fortune's Fools, won Second Prize in Amazon's 2012 Breakthrough Novel Award. She grew up in Taiwan, moved to Seattle at age 16, and studied English literature at Harvard College.

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    Reviews for An Excess Male

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    • 5/5
      The dystopian near-future depicted in An Excess Male is so tangible that it's painful. The key to the story's effectiveness is that the four central characters understand the invasive authoritarianism of the Chinese government to be utterly ordinary, if unjust, and believe that they can achieve happy, ordinary lives within the status quo--even though the government tries to make that impossible for them in various ways. The resulting human drama between them is as compelling as the undercurrent of discontent flowing beneath the surface of their society. The book delivers on the narrative potential of a story is about one man marrying a woman who has already married two others: each of the four characters has a unique relationship with each of the other three; and while all of those relationships have serious problems, all of them still seem right and good, and I finished the book feeling that the characters really are a family. It's a story that can connect emotionally in a variety of ways.
    • 5/5
      In 1979, China adopted the one-child policy in the hopes of bringing their dangerously high population numbers down. This, of course, given China's male-favoring culture, merely insured femanticide for billions of female fetuses over many long years. Do you think a society where men outnumber women will make women more valued and ensure them equal, or advanced rights?

      I am astounded and thrilled at the talent that Maggie Shen King possesses and shares with us in this, her latest released work. The loving craft she put into her four-and-one-half main characters caused me to fall in love with them slowly, and one-by-one, allowing for a lasting relationship. The way they supported each other and Drew together through formidable obstacles was what kept me reading nearly straight through, wanting for everything to come right for this family. I only hope Ms Shen King can find it in her heart to share more of her magic with me, and soon.
    • 5/5
      Rating: 4.5* of fiveThe Publisher Says: Set in a near-future China the One Child Policy has resulted in 40 million men unable to find wives. This book is one such leftover man’s quest for love and family under a State that seeks to glorify its past mistakes and impose order through authoritarian measures, reinvigorated Communist ideals, and social engineering.Wei-guo holds fast to the belief that as long as he continues to improve himself, his small business, and in turn, his country, his chance at love will come. He finally saves up the dowry required to enter matchmaking talks at the lowest rung as a third husband—the maximum allowed by law. Only a single family—one harboring an illegal spouse—shows interest, yet with May-ling and her two husbands, Wei-guo feels seen, heard, and connected to like never before. But everyone and everything—walls, streetlights, garbage cans—are listening, and men, excess or not, are dispensable to the State. Wei-guo must reach a new understanding of patriotism and test the limits of his love and his resolve in order to save himself and this family he has come to hold dear.THIS WAS A GIFT FROM MY OLD FRIEND CARO. THANK YOU, DEAR LADY. SUPERB CHOICE!My Review: You'll notice that this book's review is coming out in Pride Month's Cavalcade of Queerness. You'd likely assume that, given the extreme shortage of women in the China that Author Maggie Shen King posits, there'd be quite open homosexuality everywhere because men gonna do the wild thing however, whenever, wherever they possibly can.I speak from experience. And I am here to tell you: You do not know China, Chinese culture, or the nature of authorial sneakiness if you bought that. No, women being scarce does not give them power: It gives their fathers power. No, women being scarce does not mean gayness is tolerated by the authoritarian state: It results in social deformities and closetedness and all the horrors you see in China today.Okay, so now that I've told you what you'll learn in the first 30-ish pages of the book. Why read it? Because it is a well-designed labyrinth that will disorient you and prevent you from trusting your own judgment of who can or should be trusted. Wei-guo is a man adrift, a man without anything to anchor himself to, and is glad to find a home with his secret-driven marriage partners."Are you Willfully Sterile?" Big Dad says....Hann frowns with disbelief. "I'm a married man. With a child," he roars. He pops to his feet but is boxed in..."The Lee family has heard rumors," {the matchmaker} says. "And of course, they must ask you this question. It is better they ask you directly, don't you think?" He coaxes Hann to sit.Hann buttons up his suit coat. "You can destroy my family with accusations like that."It is so awkward that I stand too to keep {Hann} company. Big Dad glares at us both."We are honorable, good-hearted people. Get to know us, and you can make up your own mind as to who we are." Hann turns to address {Wei-guo}, and for a instant his eyes soften. "If you decide that we are right for you, then know that we are a very tightly-knit, a very close and private family. Cherish us, and we will cherish you. Marrying us is not a decision you will regret."I like what I hear, but Big Dad stands to put on his jacket, no doubt offended that Hann dares to bypass his authority and address me directly. I'm sick of him trying to sink my chances. Dad scrambles to his feet and follows Big Dad's lead. Despite my dads' brusqueness, Hann is gracious in his farewell.This is a pivotal scene...this is Big Dad, the first husband and father/ruler of Wei-guo's future. He smells a rat. He's right. But Wei-guo doesn't care about rodentia, he cares about being in his own family, being able to make a life that isn't in his dads' control. He is, after all, forty-four years old at this point.I don't guess most need to be told that "Wilfully Sterile" means gay, do I? Why that should be a bad thing in a society as lopsidedly male-dominated as this fictitious Chinese one is, I can't fathom. Still, there it is, with its hideous threats of "family dissolution and forced sterilization" to be enacted on the guilty.What ensues is a heart-stopping, heart-wrenching tale of the way that authoritarian regimes run peoples' lives for the benefit of the State that makes the rules. It's not like we haven't seen this trend in action...it's the genesis of the One-Child Policy that got China into the mess this book posits. And, seeing a chance to make its control tighter over the very nature of the family, the state reverts to its bad, hamfisted ways. Prescribing and legislating and brutally enforcing "morality" is a very popular trope among authoritarians. Look at the "pro-family" drivel the red-meat right throws around in the US. And, crucially, look at whom it's directed, and from whom rights, freedoms, the very right to define and live an identity is withheld...and tell me this book should not be on the bestseller lists right now, in 2022, as midterms of HUGE importance are ramping up.I strongly urge you to get and read a copy as soon as possible.
    • 4/5
      I first heard of this book in an article about recent dystopian fiction written by women. It stood out, as I tend to be drawn to books written by Asian women, and the premise was especially of interest. Set in a near-future Beijing, affected by the one-child policy which has resulted in far too many males, An Excess Male is the story of a family. May-Ling has two men in her life – Hann and Xiong-Xin or XX. They’re not exactly a typical China family as Hann is “Wilfully Sterile” (the official term for gay), and XX is a “Lost Boy “, socially awkward but brilliant and probably on the autism spectrum. They have a young child together.

      We are also introduced to Wei-guo, a personal trainer in his early 40s, a single man whose two fathers have saved up in order for him to finally be able to join a family (at least one that they can afford to join, for it is very expensive to join good families). And he wants to be part of May-Ling’s family. But something happens during a battle at the Strategic Games – this is one part of the book I didn’t quite understand, to be honest, it’s a kind of state-sponsored live-action role-playing game and I think Wei-guo didn’t want to follow some new regulations that were being put in. Anyway, it’s a government thing and he pretty much went against the government, throwing himself and his almost-family into jeopardy.

      I went into this book expecting dystopia and dystopia I definitely got, but I loved how the story was so much about family. How a family can consist of one woman, one child, and three men. How there can be love, romantic love, familial love, friendship, in this less-than-typical family.
    • 3/5
      A thoughtful and insightful narrative that is completely undermined by a thoroughly implausible ending. Implausible not in the scheme of things, but according to the tenets of the world that King has set up. After painstakingly demonstrating how controlling and intolerant this society of the future is, and how especially phobic it is about homosexuality (because they represent "wasted" males), we are expected to believe that a gay character lives a charmed life by the end? Nothing is more aggravating than when a sci-fi or fantasy author builds a fantastic world, and then stages a contrived ending that violates the rules of the world they themselves have created. It does seem to be an occupational hazard with some writers who dabble in dystopic fiction: either they can't face the bleakness of the world they have created, or they think readers are little children that need to be protected from the darkness of the world.
    • 4/5
      I read this one because of a review that recommended it for how it deals with notions of gender and relationships. This was a ride.
      I'm not sure how I feel about it. I was hooked to the story and the characters without doubt, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the way that all of the characters were dealing with the strains of a society not built to support them, or maybe it was the practical, but romantic in its own worldview plot-line. I really don't know.
      What I do know is that this story is going to linger with me, and would probably make some people think about things that they don't normally about family and relationship structures.
    • 4/5
      Near future dystopian vision of a scenario that could play out with the gender imbalance present in China (and potentially other countries). Disturbingly believable in places.
    • 4/5
      In the not so distant future, the male population of China exceeds the females so much that each woman can marry up to three men - an arrangement called "Advanced Families". In this novel, a man in his forties, who has just saved up the money for a dowry, fights to be accepted into a family with two husbands already present. However, this family has a number of secrets and constantly runs the risk of government intervention in a society where homosexuality and autism carry severe consequences. All of this makes for engaging reading and I'd highly recommend this book to those interested in a new take on the genre of dystopian fiction.
    • 2/5
      An interesting concept and characters get bogged down by over-writing. There isn't much that actually happens here and it doesn't happen for hundreds of pages. Part of the problem is that the book is being published by Voyager, which specializes in Science Fiction and Fantasy and this reads more like a literary novel with the trappings of S-F/dystopic fiction. Marketing shapes expectations and perception and this is being marketed to the wrong audience.

      I saw all of the five-star reviews for this and thought I was missing something. Those reviews, though, are all from new or long-dormant accounts and appear to be from friends of the author, which makes me like the book less. I'm almost feeling perverse enough to give it a one-star rating to bring the overall score to something more in line with where it probably should be.
    • 5/5
      40 million excess young men in China, created by a combination of son preference and the one-child policy, pose a profound challenge, to which a repressive government responds by (1) formalizing and routinizing prostitution involving non-Chinese women imported for this specific purpose, (2) institutionalizing polyandry, first with two husbands and then three for the most patriotic families, (3) surveilling and dealing harshly with any deviance among the unmarried men. Also, and it seems illogically but not implausibly, the government treats male homosexuality as “Voluntary Sterility” and requires gay men to register as such, limiting them to particular professions; it also discriminates against Lost Boys, or those too far on the autism spectrum. Wei-guo is an unmarried man in his early forties who’s finally scraped up enough money for a dowry. He really likes May-ling and is willing to do almost anything to become her third husband. Because her first husband, Hann, is a closeted gay man; Hann’s brother XX, her second husband, is a closeted Lost Boy; and her son is showing signs of being a Lost Boy himself, “anything” might have to go pretty far, especially since the government wants him to identify some of his unmarried war-gaming buddies for deviance. This was a really well-done portrait of “what if” in a society that manages to control its unmarried men as part of a larger repressive strategy; there are no large victories here, and survival requires some unpretty compromises, but some kinds of integrity can, it seems, survive.
    • 5/5
      Pros: brilliant world-building, fascinating diverse characters, interesting premiseCons: can get very emotionally heavy at times The China of this future has a Bounty of unmarried men. Lee Wei-guo is a 44 year old gym owner and coach and the general of the Strategic Games army Middle Kingdom. He’s finally saved enough money for a dowry, but only as a maximum - a third husband. His matchmaker has only found one interested family. The Wus looks good on paper, but Wei-guo’s two dads aren’t convinced. And they’re right. May-ling’s first husband is an undeclared Willfully Sterile, a gay man who, if outed, would lose contact with his son among other punishments. His brother and May-ling’s second husband, Xiong-Xin (who prefers to be called XX), is a potential Lost Boy. He’s an autistic computer security genius with whom May-ling is terrified of having a child through their mandated weekly conjugal sessions, because if their child is also a Lost Boy, the child would be taken from them. As Wei-guo gets to know the family and decides he wants to join it, politics and their personal problems make that outcome less and less likely.The book shows four points of view, starting with Wei-guo’s and extending to May-ling and her husbands. It’s great seeing the four people, how they interact, why they act the ways they do, what they believe and feel. There’s so much complexity to the situations presented in the book that it’s great seeing the same problems from various viewpoints. It allows you to sympathize with everyone, even as they annoy, betray, anger, and love each other. The world-building in the book is top notch. I was impressed with how carefully the author approached this potential future. The government is integrated into so many aspects of regular life, in ways that make public dissension difficult to impossible. Maintaining an aura of party support is second nature to all of the characters, as is reading between the lines of what is acceptable to say/do to understand what people actually mean. It’s a world that becomes more terrifying the more you learn about it. I was glad there was a section explaining how the Helpmates (the women who meet once a week with men to work off sexual tensions) were organized. There isn’t much mention of life outside of China, though the China First party line does frown on foreign wives, if not state sanctioned foreign sex workers. No issue is clear cut. While homosexuality is treated like a genetically inherited disease, those who declare themselves Willfully Sterile and get sterilized have a place in society. The book shows that many gay men hide their status, not willing to leave families or be seen as other by society. It’s a complex issue and it’s handled with the recognition that there are many sides to all difficult issues (even if some of those sides are abhorrent to us and the protagonists). I was also impressed by the clarity of language used to explain the thoughts that went unspoken and the acts that went undone. There are no pulled punches over how emotions work and the difficulties encountered when people with different ways of interacting are forced into close relationships. XX’s annoyance at being second guessed by his brother and wife, the difficult choices May-ling must make with regards to her marital vows when considering having XX’s child, Hann’s being a pawn in the games of his company partners, create three dimensional people with problems that seem simple from the outside, but have no easy solutions.There is a sex scene between May-ling and XX that’s very uncomfortable to read. While it’s graphic, it is also important for understanding a lot of the interpersonal problems the family has.Elements that I thought were window dressing for the purpose of world-building, for example the strategic games Wei-guo plays, turned out to have a major impact on the story later on, so read carefully.Obviously I can’t speak to how accurately the author grasped the modern Chinese mindset.This is a brilliant book.
    • 4/5
      The Handmaid’s Tale is an apt comparison for An Excess Male, a dystopic sci-fi novel that extrapolates the results of China’s One Child Policy.An Excess Male centers around one family and Wei-guo, an “excess male” who hopes to join that family. In the future imagined by King, China has turned to polyandry to deal with their skewed sex ratios. Legally, a marriage is allowed to have one wife and up to three husbands. Wei-guo, a forty-something bachelor dreams of having a family, but even entering a marriage as a third husband, his chances at marriage are still slim. But hope is in sight: the family of May-Ling, an attractive young woman with two husbands, is interested in taking him on. But the family has secrets of their own, secrets that could destroy their household if ever revealed…I initially thought that, given the premise of the book, women would have more power and equality. Turns out that’s not true. The future imagined by An Excess Male is just as patriarchal as our present. Women are placed on a pedestal. They might be more valuable objects, but they’re still objectified and denied equality. In the society of An Excess Male, women are confined to the home and the roles of wives and mothers. In fact, having multiple husbands makes their lives worse, if anything, as their marriage contracts stipulate that a wife owes each of her husbands a child and outlines bedroom schedules she’s obliged to follow. See why I said The Handmaid’s Tale comparison was appropriate?It’s the elite, married men who have the power, especially those wealthy enough that they have a wife all to themselves. It’s sort of like the people already in power find ways to keep their power and keep their bigotries in place, no matter how illogical it may be. For instance, in An Excess Male, gay men are basically second-class citizens. They have to register with the government as a “Willfully Sterile” and are then surgically sterilized. Despite that, even registered gay men are at risk of getting swept up by the police, and those who aren’t registered can have their entire lives destroyed if discovered, being prevented from ever seeing or speaking to their children again.In addition to being super sexist and homophobic, the society of An Excess Male is also super ableist. Like gay men, the neuroatypical are at risk of forced sterilization and, in their case, forcible commitment to an institution. The government deems all neuroatypical men “Lost Boys” and calls them a plight upon society, one they are determined to root out.Thus the problems of the family our story centers around. Wei-guo is an excess male, which the government sees as practically disposable. May-Ling is terribly unsuited to the role of a housewife and primary caregiver for her rambunctious toddler. Her first husband, Hanh, is a closeted gay man who keeps his sexuality a secret because of how much he wants a child. If discovered, their family unit will be dissolved and he will never see his son again. XX, Hanh’s brother and May-Ling’s second husband, is most likely somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and he also would face dire consequences for failing to “pass.”The narrative of the book alternates perspectives between the four characters. Interestingly, Wei-guo and May-Ling’s chapters are in first person while Hanh and XX’s are in third. I don’t know why the decision was made, but it worked out well enough. I enjoyed all of the characters’ chapters, and I never found myself wanting to skip one to reach another. An Excess Male is mostly a family drama, centered around these four people and their lives under a dystopic, authoritarian regime, although some other elements come in to play during the second half. From the very first chapter I was hooked and had trouble putting An Excess Male down. I ended up reading all of it in under twenty-four hours.Forewarning, there’s some problematic/ambiguous consent stuff in An Excess Male, although I did get the feeling that the narrative was aware it was problematic. Again, Handmaid’s Tale comparison. May-Ling is sixteen when her family basically sells her in marriage to Hanh and XX, who are both substantially older (in their 50’s or 60’s, I think). If you’re thinking, “yikes,” I am too. There’s a lot of really uncomfortable sex scenes in this book. May-Ling knows Hanh is gay, but she continues to make sexual advances, and sometimes he’s too tired to fend them off. Also, XX doesn’t want to be married at all, but he’s basically stuck with the situation since divorce is extremely difficult and would cause all kinds of exposure to the family.Probably my biggest issues with An Excess Male relate to how it handles queer issues. In short, not very well. The notions of sexuality presented are very binary — gay or straight. At one point in the story (when May-Ling is saying she and XX could divorce, she could then marry a straight man and Hanh a gay one), it would have made a ton or sense for it to acknowledge bi or pan people exist, but alas. Even if the society in the book thinks of sexuality as binary, I expect a novel dealing with these themes to recognize greater complexity. For a story with a major subplot about homophobia, it just doesn’t make any sense to only mention gay men as existing. Does the government similarly recognize lesbians? They’re never mentioned. My guess is that they aren’t recognized the same way and are forced to get married, because that’s what benefits the straight men who rule everything. The final straw for “this book doesn’t handle queer issues well” is the ending Hanh receives relative to the straight characters in the book. I won’t get into spoilers, but I was raising my eyebrow.I would have liked more female characters as well (I’m not sure this book passes the Bechdel Test), but I can see why they were absent, since that is the basic premise of the novel. I still would have liked to see more relationships between women, but I guess that would be a whole different book. Maybe King will write another story set in the same world? I think there’s plenty of room for it, and I’d love to read it.An Excess Male is a very complex story, dealing with issues of sexism, homophobia, and ableism. I think it actually works as a literary fiction/science fiction cross-over that could appeal to other groups. Although judging by other reviews, there’s some conflicts there. Some readers found it too genre while others found it too literary. Although I don’t think it handled the issue of homophobia super well, An Excess Male is still worth reading. It’s a story I’d recommend (maybe with a few caveats attached), and I’d love to see it get more attention from the sci-fi community.Review from The Illustrated Page.