Gunga Din Highway
A novel by Frank Chin

"The Asian American literary gangster." - Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Deftly combines humor with deadly cynicism." - New York Times Book Review

"A complex and compelling work that takes us deep into the multicultural fabric of America." - Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Longman, the ‘Chinaman Who Dies’ in countless movies, is despised by his son for his ambition of someday playing Charlie Chan . . . A funny and entertaining novel."

- Western American Literature

Nothing - not even Lassie - is held sacred when Frank Chin starts off by tilting at Hollywood's windmills and then moves on to topple many of today's other sacred cows.

Gunga Din Highway is a freewheeling, multigenerational saga that pivots around the Kwan family: Longman, the Chinaman Who Dies in countless Hollywood epics, and his son Ulysses, who despises his father's dream of someday playing Charlie Chan. Woven into their story are an assortment of funny and flawed individuals whose lives intersect in an often unexpected pattern.

Imbued with Chinese mythology, family conflict, sixties protests, the strains of flamenco guitar, and cameo appearances by Hollywood greats ranging from John Wayne to Oliver Stone, this impassioned and quicksilver-like narrative is a breakthrough book for Chin and for all literature that calls itself multicultural. At times argumentative and angry, but always entertaining, Chin shakes us out of our complacency about the rules operating in today's politically correct world, and challenges us with an American tale that reveals big truths and an even bigger reality.

Frank Chin is known for his uncompromising portrayals of Chinese Americans and for his incorporation of Chinese mythology into his work. Chin is the author of a previous novel, Donald Duk (Coffee House Press 1991). His short story collection, Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. (Coffee House Press 1988) received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A recent recipient of a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, Frank Chin regards himself as a Seattle writer, unavoidably detained in Los Angeles.