There are two main storylines here, which take place in Malaysia in 1931. The first belongs to Ji Lin and is told in the first person. Ji Lin is a young woman working as an apprentice in a dressmaker’s shop. She is also secretly working part-time at the May Flower Dance hall as a dance girl, which is not considered an appropriate job for respectable young women. Ji Lin needs the extra income to help pay off her mother’s mahjong gambling debts before her stern stepfather finds out. The second storyline is told in the third person and belongs to Ren, an eleven year servant assigned a task by his dying master. Ren must find and recover his master’s severed finger in the 49 days it will take his master’s consciousness to travel from one life to the next and bury it with his body so he can be whole in the afterlife. At different points in time, the novel changed its shape. While working on it, I never quite knew what this book was about. Is it the boy Ren? Is it about Ji Lin, the dance hall girl? When I first started writing, Ji Lin wasn't even in there at all. I'd written a few chapters like that, and my agent asked why there weren't any women in the book. During the following days, the circus experiences a heat wave, heightening tensions. On one night, Johnston witnesses Mr. Indrasil baiting Green Terror by jabbing him with a pike until being frightened away by a mysterious green-eyed shadow.

Smith, Teresa (4 May 2019). "Book Review: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo". Theresa Smith Writes . Retrieved 5 May 2022. It wasn’t trained professional dancing ( which she was), that they were looking for. She had to learn the ‘Tango’ fast. Alright, let’s talk about that romance! What did you think about the forbidden love of Jin Lin and Shin? When did you start to notice they both had feelings for each other? Do you think they will end up getting married one day? Why or why not? A work of incredible beauty...Astoundingly captivating and striking in its portrayal of love, betrayal, and death, The Night Tiger is a transcendent story of courage and connection." — Booklist (starred review) Van Hise, James (1990). Stephen King and Clive Barker: The Illustrated Masters of the Macabre. Pioneer Books. p.75. ISBN 978-1-55698-253-8.In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master's severed finger and reunite it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth forever. Set in Malaysia during the 1930’s, the story alternates between Ren, an eleven -year old Chinese houseboy and Ji Lin, a young woman who has been forced to give up her goal of working in the medical profession. Ren is on a mission to find his late master’s finger so he can return it to his grave. Failure to do so within 49 days will prevent his master from resting in peace. Meanwhile, Ji Lin, is working as a dressmaker, while also secretly moonlighting as a dance hall girl to pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts, before her hardened stepfather finds out. In 1931, in British Malaya, Ji Lin works as an apprentice dressmaker and dancehall girl. One of her dance partners leaves her with a human finger. A sumptuous garden maze of a novel that immerses readers in a complex, vanished world…Choo weaves her research in with a feather-light touch, and readers will be so caught up in the natural and supernatural intrigue that the serious themes here about colonialism and power dynamics, about gender and class, are absorbed with equal delicacy.” ― Kirkus(starred review) I loved the atmosphere of the book, the 'magical realism' mystery of it, the lush Asian environment, the historical character of the story, the dark and brooding story, loved it.

Malaya, with its mix of Malays, Chinese, and Indians, is full of spirits: a looking-glass world governed by unsettling rules. Jin Lin was a rookie dressmaker....but the job as a student/apprentice wasn’t enough money to help get her mother out of a Financial jam. So on the side she secretly took a job working at the May Flower Dance Hall.

Book Club Questions for The Night Tiger

A captivating and magical story set in 1930s Malaysia about a dancehall girl and an orphan boy who are brought together by a series of unexplained deaths and an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers.