In Christina Li’s debut novel, we begin with the death of a once-renowned actress, Vivian Yin, and the reading of her will. This is a trope familiar to us in both books and film, a recent example being Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. Like Knives Out, what emerges is a haves and have-nots drama when Yin’s children are disinherited in favor of Elaine Deng, Yin’s housekeeper’s daughter. Despite these familiar beginnings, Li’s novel takes on a distinctive flair once the Yins and the Dengs occupy separate floors of Vivian Yin’s once-great country home. The house has fallen into disrepair, and within the weedy garden and crumbling walls lie long-buried secrets that both parties must try to unearth.
The novel is told in dual timelines, flashing back to Vivian Yin’s acting years. Like many dual timeline novels, one narrative occupies more spirit and intrigue than the other, as Vivian herself immediately steals the show. As she climbs the ladder and becomes an Oscar-winning actress while raising her three daughters, we come to understand both her magnetism and her deeply flawed nature, especially when it comes to her fraught relationships with her husband and daughters. Even though we inhabit other perspectives in this older timeline, we always anticipate coming back to Vivian, the centerpiece of this novel. While we experience Vivian in the modern timeline through memories, archival information, and dialogue, her mind is cut off from us except in flashbacks. This helps to continue the mystery, but the frame narrative’s characters lack Vivian’s, for lack of a better phrase, star power.
While Vivian’s daughters, Lucille and Renata, are compelling characters in their own right, their arcs feel incomplete. Renata in particular spends most of the narrative observing the other characters and withholding information, and while this serves to contrast her controlling older sister, we find ourselves wanting to know more about her personal turmoil. Instead, this time in the narrative is absorbed by the younger generation. Nora (Elaine Deng’s daughter) and Madeline (Vivian Yin’s granddaughter) play a more active role in the story, but their conflicts with their mothers feel shallower than the real pathos Lucille and Renata experience. Their past tragedies deserve more page time to explore, as they are only introduced in the final act of the story. Since so much of the novel is withheld and presented through the flashback narrative, the frame narrative feels inert by comparison.
Another piece that reaches its peak in the final act is the speculative aspect of the novel. Christina Li presents us with a new version of the haunted house story, as the family home has a long-held history with ambiguous effects on its occupants. Some family members emerge unscathed, others do not, and the unpredictability of the house and its familial curse are some of its most compelling points. However, when these ghosts create a very literal destruction around them, the pacing rapidly ramps up to an almost breakneck speed. This has its benefits and drawbacks, but the threat of physical demise feels like a near-afterthought when much of the narrative stakes have been emotional. The strengths of the novel lie in its exploration of family dynamics, and seeing the climax of the novel veer from this course feels both jarring and intriguing. If the novel does nothing else, it plays with our expectations.
What Christina Li has written cannot exist without its flowers. The Manor of Dreams is a carefully constructed, wholly imaginative novel. It combines familiar ideas with less than familiar execution, and the result is a page-turner with true literary merit, a very difficult balance to strike. Small quibbles with pacing and characterization aside, the novel appeals to those who love domestic dramas, family sagas, and the dark side of celebrity status. In short, the novel appeals to many, many of us, and does so with ease.
FICTION
by Christina Li
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published on May 6, 2025
