Asian journey to manhood

The mysteries of Asia lure many young men from the West, and some women too, who are looking for serious adventure. Some think they are running away from family. Others say they are seeking a fortune. Still others believe they are pursuing a noble idea, like converting masses to Christianity. Whatever the ostensible reason for venturing to an utterly foreign culture, the common if unrecognized thread among these rugged sojourners is most often a desire to explore the other side of the world in order to better understand themselves.

“Heaven Lake,” the impressive debut novel by John Dalton, rides on the shoulders of one of these young men, who starts out with simple and immature notions and, as he endures the unexpected series of events that befall him, becomes a seasoned traveler. It is a beguiling story, told with comic flair.

The premise -- an earnest American missionary goes to a small town in Taiwan to set up and operate a ministry house at the tender age of 22 -- seems daunting. The young man, Vincent Saunders, conscientiously establishes a program of free English classes to attract the unsuspecting, and once they are seated in his classroom, tells them about the Bible. Townspeople respond to the free classes but are skeptical about the Jesus talk.

Dalton, who lived in Taiwan for several years and traveled in mainland China, has a fine feel for Chinese culture, and his characters reflect old Chinese habits of secrecy, stoicism and paternalism, as well as the modern combination of excitement and uncertainty at signs of coming change. The mixing of old and new, Eastern and Western, often yields amusing results in Dalton’s hands. A Taiwanese man who introduces himself by his chosen English name, Ponic, proudly insists that it is a well-known and respected name, not realizing that he has simply mangled the spelling of his favorite American car, a Pontiac.

Vincent’s initial sense of purpose as a Christian missionary, with straightforward and moralistic answers for everything, seems at first to protect him from the quicksand of the unknown. He disdainfully spurns an offer from a Taiwanese businessman to pay $10,000 for Vincent to go to western China and pretend to marry a certain almond-eyed young woman in order to bring her back to Taiwan for the businessman, who himself is prevented from making the trip by Taiwan-China tensions.

Yet Vincent’s resolve collapses under unforeseen circumstance, and it makes him more human. He falls for a high school student named Trudy, a quirky and socially inept girl with firm, round breasts and a passion for kissing. Vincent knows it would be reckless to sneak Trudy to his room inside the Ministry House. But he cannot stop thinking about what lies beneath her blouse, and he succumbs, again and again.

Once the two are discovered, Trudy’s father exiles her to a boarding school and her brother beats Vincent in a scene that is described in skull-numbing detail. Small-town gossip instantly robs Vincent of the standing to be a teacher of English, let alone of spiritual pursuits. Suddenly the offer to leave Taiwan for China, with a pocketful of cash, does not seem so terrible. Vincent is soon on his way.

And this is just the beginning of the real tale. It moves to mainland China and proceeds at an exhilarating pace, with moments of harrowing danger and soul-searching reveries about the meaning of passion and loneliness and faith. Ultimately, “Heaven Lake” offers a touching meditation on the vagaries of love.

When Vincent reaches Heaven Lake, a gorgeous body of water in the mountainous desert of western China, he has an epiphany about the meaning of life that ought to be the climax of the book. This is the only place Dalton stumbles, however, and his protagonist’s insight inexplicably fades, without altering the trajectory of the story as it should.

No matter. Dalton has an intoxicating ability to infuse simple scenes with considerable depth of human emotion. His characters are richly drawn. His throwaway references are delicate and revealing. In the end, “Heaven Lake” is a winning novel for the way that Dalton lets his characters fumble and survive moments of choice in a wobbly manner that is recognizably human.

Seth Faison, a former China correspondent for the New York Times, is the author of “South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China.”