American Son
by Brian Ascalon Roley
Reviewed by Nicholas Jose
American Son is the story of a Filipina
woman, abandoned by her American husband, who struggles to
raise two teenage boys in contemporary Los Angeles. Against
a background of ethnic and economic fault lines, crime and
violence, she hopes her Filipino-American sons will achieve
the dream of a better life that was the reason she migrated
with them to the United States. The elder son, Tomas, who
sells attack dogs for a living, is involved with gangs. He
intimidates his studious younger brother, Gabe, into joining
him. Their long-suffering mother fails to counter Tomas's
destructive influence over her favorite son. The family members
internalize a conflict between Filipino and American values
as they seek to move forward in a tough, competitive society.
In order to embrace what America offers, the two brothers
are forced to disown the qualities of family respect that
come from their Asian heritage. The conflict plays out within
the dynamics of distorted love, pride and shame, as a battle
for Gabe's soul is waged between elder brother and mother,
and within Gabe himself.
With a light economy of touch, the novel puts together simple elements from domestic life to show how the mixed cultural background impacts family relationships. Three well-structured episodes chart Gabe's descent into delinquency, each prefaced by a letter from a concerned uncle back in the Philippines who suggests the boys be sent back there for some discipline. First, the brothers sell a guard dog to rich Hollywood types, but refuse to part with their mother's favorite dog at any price. Then Gabe is tempted by the possibility of escape and self-assertion. Loyalty frays, leading to the most harrowing scene in the book - the son's betrayal of the mother he loves, as he projects onto her his own anxieties about skin color and identity. When Gabe succumbs to violence at last, pushed by the prejudice he feels all around him, we understand that the real damage is being inflicted on the family itself.
What makes American Son so special is its freshness and its human heart. The story is told in Gabe's raw, first person, present-tense voice, and takes us right inside his adolescent experience and the world around him. The writing is spare and alert. Ordinary details are sharpened, dialogue needles. The social terrain is unforgivingly charted. An atmosphere of heightened reality builds, exhilarating but fraught with fear, edged with the intensity of California heat and light. The emotional effect of this build up, in one brilliantly executed scene after another, is extraordinary. American Son combines hard-hitting power with literary grace and sensitivity. Gabe is an innocent. What happens to him is a tragedy. Yet when Gabe betrays his own best qualities, the novel does not let him go. Roley keeps faith with his character's innocence, understanding its moral power with an unsentimental sympathy that is mature and deeply moving.
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