SOURCE: “Timothy Mo's Asian Studies,” in Washington Post Book World, Vol. XVII, No. 17, April 26, 1987.

In the following review, Yardley comments on Mo’s narrative skills and characterizes the author's shortcomings.

The ways of book publishing being as they are, the immensely gifted young British writer Timothy Mo made his American debut two years ago not with his first novel but his second: Sour Sweet, an irresistible book about a Chinese family living in London and learning—among many other things—how to cope with the alien Western culture. Sour Sweet was enthusiastically reviewed in this country, acquired a small but ardent readership, and aroused much curiosity about Mo’s first novel, provocatively if enigmatically titled The Monkey King.

Now that curiosity can be satisfied. Mo’s first novel and his third, An Insular Possession, have been simultaneously published by two American houses. They turn out to be works...