A real dictatorship: "Detective Dog" by Gish Jen

Last year, I was a little underwhelmed by George Saunders' "Your Involvement Will Not Help," which appeared in Best American Short Stories. Partly, I found it a little preachy and a little too certain that the advent of Trump--unsettling as it was--meant a sure path to tyranny unless we all (except for writers who are established enough to get published in The New Yorker, but, you know, other people without as much to lose) rose and and did something.™  The story didn't really offer any helpful advice about what that something was, because there's always the rub, but it did "admire the problem" a lot, as they say in corporate speak. But it was a moot point, anyway. Nobody really did much except vote in 2020. After the mid-terms this week, it seems Trump is losing steam on his own. It took longer than it should have, but it's happening. We have other issues to deal with now, all of which will be met better with sustained, knowledge-based engagement than with the shame-based "do something" attitude of "Your Involvement." But it's fashionable to cosplay like a freedom fighter.

Gish Jen's "Detective Dog" didn't have any more answers, but at least it was about an actual dictatorship. It's the story of a woman who was born in Hong Kong, followed her mother's advice to keep her nose out of politics and into making money, and who was therefore able to buy her way out of Hong Kong before the real crackdown on liberty began in 2014 with the Umbrella Movement. All the characters have Western names in the story, which I assume are their adopted names when they moved to Canada and the United States. 

"Detective Dog" follows the classic question those who face real politically oppressive systems must face: go along, try to thrive, and hope for the best, or set yourself on fire, become a human projectile hurling yourself against the machine, and hope your sacrifice will mean something. Betty, main character of the story, has chosen money over politics, the mantra her mother, Tina, passed to her. Betty's older sister, Bobby, chose politics. However, the system eventually beat her down, and Bobby was trying to live down her radical past when the government arrested her. Betty has taken Bobby's son in, where they now live in affluent circumstances in New York. 

It's the beginning of the pandemic, and there's a lot going on in the present as Betty's kids--her own and her adopted nephew--come of age in different ways, both seeking some version of "the truth" about Hong Kong. Betty's older child, as wealthy children becoming aware of the world often do, comes to hate the choices his parents have made that made them wealthy. He leaves as soon as online poker gives him the means to.

Robert, however, is a more sensitive child, more dedicated to sniffing out the truth, like the dog he eventually pretends to be. He's somewhat dog-obsessed throughout the story, actually. He's on the scent of the past. When it comes out, it's fairly touching, although some of the devices used to get us there feel a little forced. 

If the theme of "Your Involvement" was, "Do something; I don't know what, but something," then the theme of "Detective Dog" is more like, "Eventually, a plan to lay low and go along will self-destruct, because there are something things you just can't keep in." It's a more honest and modestly hopeful statement about life beneath tyranny. 

Saunders was overly grim about the state of America, but the world certainly seems to be flirting with authoritarianism in many places. More and more people will be facing the questions Betty faced. Jen's story is humane to people making the only choices they felt they could make, while still offering a small window of hope. 

Other readings: Karen Carlson feels a little discombobulated by the story, but gives it the old college try.