“Tash Aw's Five Star Billionaire opens with a bang, not a whimper. Four Malaysians are trying to make it in Shanghai, the new capital of the eastern world – but when we meet them, each of their lives is in freefall. There's Phoebe, the ambitious young Malaysian village girl who passes herself off as Chinese and has arrived in Shanghai on the broken promise of a job and a new life. There's Gary, a "Taiwanese" pop star who finds his fall from grace in a Shanghai bar endlessly replayed on YouTube and is reduced to singing in shopping malls. There's Yinghui, a steely and successful businesswoman whose friends tell her that to really succeed in Shanghai, she needs a man. And, finally, there's Justin, the lonely businessman adopted into a wealthy Malaysian family, who has lost his way while his family have lost their fortune. He and Yinghui knew each other in an earlier life and their reconnection is one of the fine threads that link the characters in this book. Though how many of those threads are held by the fifth character, Walter Chao – the mysterious "I" and author of the bestselling self-help manual Five Star Billionaire – remains to be seen.
Shanghai values are the values of a new age. Nobody wants to change the world – they only want to get out of it what they can, whatever it takes. With her "good fake" designer bags, stolen ID and forged early life in Guangdong, Phoebe's transformation is the most extreme. Before Gary became a Taiwanese pop star, he was just a poor kid from rural Malaysia with a bullying stepfather. Yinghui's drive masks a shameful family secret and a broken heart that has never quite healed. In Shanghai you can be whoever you want to be.”
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