“Ghost Town” (鬼地方) tells the story of a man’s return to his childhood home in a desolate rural Taiwanese village, after serving time for murdering his boyfriend in Germany. Despite the village being “haunted” by folklore ghosts, the more ghastly beings may have been the living humans after all.

The Chen family hails from the central Taiwanese township of Yongjing (永靖), a name which means “eternal peace” but also “always quiet”. The seven Chen children – five older sisters and two younger brothers – all lead tragic lives as adults: marital abuse, fraud, adultery, betrayal, bribery, homicide, suicide, mental illness… define their destinies. The youngest brother’s unannounced return from Germany sparked a flame so bright as to reveal the ugly dark specter hiding within each of them.

With each chapter, author Kevin Chen fluidly moves the narrative of the novel from the perspective of one character to another, both alive and dead, slowly peeling away layer upon layer of the family’s tragic past, leaving everyone’s skeletons of the closet out to hang. The unfurling of this multigenerational family saga is a page-turner that reminds one of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez.