The Rent Collector

Ki Lim and Sang Ly live in Cambodia's largest dump, Stung Meanchey, where their daily aspiration is to earn enough for a few bites of pork and vegetables to accompany the nightly rice. Their great dream is for their chronically-ill young son, Nisay, to become healthy. Through an improbable turn of events (more on that in a minute), Sang Ly learns to read from the perpetually drunk and equally bitter - and embittered - old woman, Sopeap, who comes each month demanding rent money for their canvas-walled shack. Known to the tenants as the Rent Collector, Sang Ly susses out one of Sopeap's most closely held secrets, changing the course of both of their lives.

Camron Wright's story is so treacly that had I not been reading for work, I never would have finished. And while the writing itself is not bad, there's simply nothing to recommend it on that basis alone. I felt uneasy as I read, thinking that, compared to a work like Twilight in Djakarta or And the Rain My Drink, it lacks authenticity and voice. Moreover, while I could, at the most basic of levels, understand the author's decision to construct a story around a quest for literacy, the circumstances render this so unlikely as to interfere with the story itself. That is, the best fiction doesn't *feel* like fiction, but Wright's story is so improbable that the reader can never leave the realm of *reading* the story and simply *feel* it.

It wasn't until I came to the acknowledgments, though, that I was able to put my finger on exactly what bothered me throughout. The acknowledgments begin with Wright sincerely thanking "The many great writers of classical literature whose work I've referenced or quoted in The Rent Collector. In a handful of cases...I've modified their original work. There is a reasonable chance that all are horrified, but their work is in the public domain, and, of course, they are dead and I'm not." The arrogance! And then it hits me: this is what has left me so uneasy. The entire book is rotten with it, and now that I've identified my chief gripe, I can't let it go.

(I double down on this assessment when I look up Wright's author bio on Amazon and read "Camron Wright...has a master's degree in Writing and Public Relations from Westminster College. He has owned several successful retail stores in addition to working with his wife in the fashion industry, designing for the McCall Pattern Company in New York. Camron began writing to get out of attending MBA school at the time, and it proved the better decision." Now this has become personal. I'm sure he think he's merely cutesy - ha! these authors are dead; I'm not! - but plugging fashion design in his author bio? Really? And he began writing to "get out of attending MBA school?" This is a point of pride for him? Deep breaths, Sarah, deep breaths.)

Mostly, though, and this very much falls into the category of not-my-business, I'm most bothered that this is the book EMBA students were assigned prior to traveling to Cambodia and Vietnam in 2018. I see no value - historically or culturally, nor of the story itself. Frankly, Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy would have been more appropriate in providing context for students around the choices to be made vis-a-vis trading one type of hard life for another one; if historical context is what the faculty wanted, The Elimination (Cambodia) or The Sorrow of War (Vietnam) would have been far better choices, imHo.

Suffice it to say, I do not recommend this book, nor can I think of any circumstance under which I would assign it. The end.