The Stationary Front

Powerful, subtle, and poetic, this is a novel about the mysterious human heart and its turbulent emotional forces. In it, trivialities are found to be significant, and ordinary scenes become most beautiful. It explores the deepest feelings of three teenagers. The story line is almost threadbare, but the dramatic tension throughout The Stationary Front is electric and gripping. The setting is Taipei in 1962. A high school student, the narrator, invites one of his classmates to move into his house while the two are preparing for the college entrance exams. Over the course of a summer, the classmate forms a most intriguing relationship with the narrator’s younger brother. At the same time, the narrator also discovers their fascinating minds, including his own, previously unknown to himself. The reader becomes witness to a wrenching clash of wills. The writing is studded with a masterful symbolism of rain, thunder, stars, and light and shadow. The ending, as in many great works of fiction, is simple yet profound and shattering.