‘The Manor of Dreams’ Review: Matriarchs battle over a haunted estate

Two families, both alike in dignity and each with plenty of suppressed damage, meet in a crumbling Altadena mansion for the reading of Oscar-winner-turned-recluse Vivian Yin’s will in Christina Li’s adult fiction debut, “The Manor of Dreams.” On one side of the table are Vivian’s daughters, Lucille and Rennie, as well as Lucille’s only child, Madeline. On the other side are Elaine Deng, a single mother, and her daughter Nora. Completing the opening tableau is Reid Lyman, Vivian’s attorney.

It’s not entirely clear why the families are meeting in Yin Manor, Vivian’s dilapidated mansion, as opposed to in the attorney’s office, but as this is a Gothic haunted house novel, the venue, if a tad contrived, is crucial.

Vivian Yin’s will contains an unpleasant surprise for her daughters. While they inherit her money — disappointing at a mere $40,000, much less than expected — the mansion is given to Elaine. Lucille, herself a lawyer and seemingly spoiling for a fight as soon as she sees the Dengs in her childhood home, immediately challenges this. Why would her mother give Elaine the house when Lucille and Rennie grew up there, and the land belonged to their father’s family for generations? Elaine agrees to give the sisters a week to stay in the house and look through Vivian’s effects (and to buy themselves time to contest the will), but only on the condition that she and Nora stay in the house too.

When Lucille gets a preliminary toxicology report from her mother’s autopsy, she learns that the results are “inconclusive,” and becomes convinced that Elaine must have poisoned Vivian, and sets out to use her week in the house to prove it. That these two women have bad blood between them is obvious, but readers are, at this point, as in the dark as daughters Nora and Madeline.

“The Manor of Dreams” signals early on what it’s going to be. As her sister and Elaine argue over the will, Rennie sees her deceased mother standing across the table. “Rennie was immediately flooded with a childlike burst of relief as she looked upon her mother. She’s back; she’s here to explain things — And then she remembers that Vivian is dead.” The vision turns spookier: “Her inky eyes bulged. Mā opened her mouth wide, as if to say something, and dirt spilled out.”

The ghostly fun doesn’t stop there, although the house affects each of its denizens differently. Some of the women experience earthquakes and see things in the long-dead (or is it?) garden, while others witness their own faces changing in the mirror. But neither Vivian’s children nor Elaine are big talkers, and Madeline and Nora suffer for it. Both young women are present because their mothers want them to be, but it’s not entirely clear why — only that, as the novel unfolds, it appears that perhaps it’s the house’s wish that they stay, as it pushes them toward each other, willing them to repeat a history that has never been shared with them.

The novel’s second part, which is the longest, takes readers back to 1975, when Vivian Yin first met her husband-to-be, Richard Lowell. These historical sections are thrilling, and Vivian is the most fully realized character in the book. Already a mother when she meets Richard, as well as an actress with plenty of experience in Chinese films, Vivian in 1975 is a complex figure, struggling to break into an industry that was rarely writing roles for her, with whitewashing and yellowface still very much a reality. But Vivian is nevertheless on the cusp of a real Hollywood career, and falling in love with and marrying another up-and-coming star seems like it should clinch her future success. But when, a decade into their union, she wins an Oscar and he doesn’t, things begin to go downhill fast.

Reviewing a novel that relies on reveals for much of its tension can be difficult, as it would be unfair and deleterious to the reading experience to say too much about the twists and turns. Suffice to say that Vivian’s secrets — as well as those of Lucille, Rennie and Elaine — come spilling out, changing, at times, the lens through which we see their actions. Nora and Madeline, meanwhile, aren’t as well developed, but then again, they’re both entirely preoccupied throughout with trying to understand what on earth is going on in this creepy house, what their mothers aren’t telling them and why.

The book falls short in its attempt to tie Yin Manor’s haunted nature to the exploitation of the thousands of Chinese migrants who built the Western half of the first transcontinental railroad, however. It’s an evocative through line, to be sure, but it’s given short shrift, and doesn’t end up having the emotional or political impact that it might have.

On the whole, though, “The Manor of Dreams” is a swift and enjoyable read, increasingly spooky, with a surprising queer romance twining its way through.

Masad, a books and culture critic, is the author of the novel “All My Mother’s Lovers” and the forthcoming novel “Beings.”