Review of the Day: The Morgue Keeper by Ruyan Meng

Aristotle identified four types of metaphor, with one being species to genus or synecdoche. The Greek can be literally translated as coming together or understanding together. Kenneth Burke called it one of the four master tropes and said, “Synecdoche is related to the representation of a part for the whole, the whole for the part, the container for the contained, the sign for the thing signified, the material for the thing made, cause for effect, effect for cause, etc.” This idea of understanding a larger phenomenon by concentrating on one detail or part of the thing is a central aspect of human thinking.

In the context of a narrative, when a writer describes something by only describing one detail she invites the reader to engage with the story by making the connection between the part and the whole in their own mind. In Meng’s rather intense short novel, the main character, Qing Yuan, while working at a morgue is deeply affected by an unnamed body or “#19”, a woman who has been viciously murdered. Rather than saying that this is a book about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Meng invites the reader to think for herself about how one man seeing this one dead body might represent this historical event that affected millions of people over a ten year period.

Qing Yuan is driven to understand the murder of #19:

“#19, on the other hand, in the larger sense, had been innocent. The very least he could do was to learn the circumstances of her murder. It didn’t matter that her murderers were captured and punished. The likelihood of that, he knew, amounted to the escape of a rhinoceros from a zoo. One way or another, he had to find out.” (location 1467).

Meng’s novel is an introspective psychological novel that does have some descriptions of violence and human suffering, although I did not find them overwhelming. Overall, I found the book to be an engaging and moving story about one man’s attempt to understand just one of the many victims of the Chinese cultural revolution.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book via NetGalley; all opinions are my own.

scheduled for publication 15 October 2025. epub. 191 pgs. 23 September 2025. Galloway NJ USA

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