If the characters were not flawed (and mildly irritating), the story would be less interesting. The immigrant parents follow a pattern of being secretive, and communicating only when needed . Mid-20s Ash blames his father's infidelity for causing his parents' marriage breakup, and so ignores his mother's entreaties (without explanation) to call his father, as well as his father's phone calls. His father, in return, invades Ash's sanctum of a Hakka restaurant, which he frequents with "his boys" - friends from childhood.
His father's tremors has been diagnosed as Parkinson's. The parents seem to have picked the correct son to lean on, as Ash's brother seems to be an unemployed layabout. Ash, however, switches into take-charge mode, getting groceries, trying to teach his father to cook, introducing him to a cannibas store, and getting his father appointments with medical specialists. However, his father prefers to withdraw, missing the possibility of brain stimulation therapy, which would avoid the side effects of his medication. He also does not tell Ash that he likes his job as a bus driver, while Ash enthuses about the possibility of a softer job in a collector's booth.
Ash is an aspiring writer, but his novella is going nowhere. He commutes daily from suburban Scarborough to a downtown Toronto coffee shop "to write", but mostly just stares at his computer. He refuses to write a stereotypical immigrant novel, like the author in American Fiction (2023) refusing to write a Black ghetto novel. Also, he is going by the dictum of "write what you know", but does not go out and get life experiences, like the protagonist in Trick (1999) and Sebastian (2024). His nightlife, too, is downtown, often with the threat of missing the last train home.
At the coffee shop, Ash meets and develops a relationship with barista Claire, the only major White character. Claire has moved over 2,000 miles away from home for university, but also another 300 miles for a summer job. For reasons I can only guess at, Claire demands that her Brown customers give her their "real" names to write on their cups, not just an easy-to-pronounce White name. Ash, meanwhile, exhibits reverse-generation racism, after finding (from his father) that not only his mother has a new boyfriend, but that he is White.
This is a good portrait of the Scarborough - Toronto dynamic. While technically amalgamated into the City of Toronto, Scarborough still feels that it is an inferior suburb, unsuccessfully aspiring to downtown status, like our protagonist Ash.
