FICTION

THE ANCESTOR GAME by Alex Miller (Graywolf: $24; 302 pp.) Some novels are like palm trees: They rise straight up in one clear direction and have a big pay-off at the top. Alex Miller’s “The Ancestor Game,” is like an ancient banyan tree with limbs shooting out sideways from unexpected places. Each of these limbs then forms new growth, so that the overall effect is oddly shaped, and enigmatic. Winner of Australia’s top literary prize, The Miles Franklin Award for Fiction, “The Ancestor Game” covers the history of three main characters, Steven, Lang Tzu, and Gertrude. Moving, often without warning, across time and continents, the three intertwined lives are illuminated through the generations of people preceding them. What exactly makes an identity, a homeland, and an artist seems to be the questions Miller is exploring. The novel, at its best, is unusual and oddly compelling. Here is a description of someone bowing: “He did not kowtow in the servile oriental manner, which must imply submission, but inclined his torso stiffly from the waist in meagerest salutation . . . to imply an elusive but incontestable cultural superiority. It was a good bow from such a short man and did all he required of it. It was a bow that offered nothing.” In spite of many fascinating ideas and images, “The Ancestor Game” may be, for many people, a frustrating novel. Since there is no central through-line, the book certainly qualifies as a non-traditional narrative, yet often, Miller’s writing lacks the muscle needed to carry a reader forward without story. This is only an intermittent problem, but still, it detracts from what might otherwise be a thoroughly engaging book.