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Fixer Chao (2001)
When William Narciso Paulinha, a Filipino street hustler, meets Shem C, a disreputable and social-climbing writer embittered by his lack of success, the Feng Shui scam of the century is born. Under Shem C's guidance, Paulinha assumes the persona of Master Chao, a revered Feng Shui practitioner from Hong Kong. Distorting the Eastern concept of Feng Shui -- the mystical Chinese art of creating a harmonious environment, promising its adherents peace and prosperity -- to accommodate Western demands, they peddle their peculiar brand of this holistic philosophy among New York City's elite.As this latter-day confidence man cuts a swath through upper-crust society, his biting observations form a comic portrait of class resentment and revenge. An auspicious debut, Fixer Chao raises questions of race and privilege, character and identity, and of what it means to be Asian at the turn of the twenty-first century. -
El Maestro de Feng Shui (2002)
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The Disinherited (2004) -- Finalist, 2004 Lambda Literary Award for Male Fiction
Manila, 2000. Forty-four-year-old Roger Caracera returns to his birthplace after nearly three decades in the United States. He has come to bury the corrupt, charismatic head of the family sugar dynasty: his estranged father, Jesus. To Caracera's chagrin and pleasure, he is now viewed by his countrymen as the representative American; a local tabloid even refers to him as a General Douglas MacArthur look-alike. And when his father's will is read, Caracera is stunned to discover that he has been left half a million dollars. ¶Unable to live with this burdensome inheritance, he decides to give his money away. But who among the millions of needy Filipinos is he to focus on?¶Traversing high and low life, societies rank and respectable, and with a cast of characters that includes a slum-dwelling boy hustler, a middle-aged American pederast, a rising Filipino tennis player, a calculating society matron, and a Peace Corps worker turned trophy wife, The Disinherited is an incisive and illuminating exploration of the impulse to do good in the world and the paradoxical harm brought on by generosity.