New Taipei Night Market Novel Dives Into the Plight of Undocumented Workers

The Dead Can't Make a Living by Ed Lin

This reviewer’s sole complaint about personal favorite award-winning author Ed Lin is the long wait between books in his Taipei Night Market series, which began in 2014 with Ghost Month. The Dead Can’t Make a Living is the fifth featuring the sympathetic stand-out protagonist and narrator Jing-nan. Incidentally, Jing-nan is the given name of American-born author Ed Lin, which reflects his familial roots in Taiwan and China.

A Family Lost, Another Found

Since the fictional Jing-nan became responsible for Unknown Pleasures, his late parents’ business, it has become the most popular food stand in Taipei’s shadowy Shilin Night Market. He had renamed the stall in homage to nihilistic cult punk band Joy Division, a group with two albums released and verging on international success that was derailed when lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide the night before their American tour began. Jing-nan obsessively plays their work and collects rare pressings and memorabilia.

Two-pronged tragedy struck Jing-nan when, as a UCLA sophomore, he was summoned back to Taiwan after his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and his mother died in a car crash en route to the airport to meet him, followed shortly thereafter by his father’s demise. Orphaned, bereft and suddenly tethered to their heavily debt-ridden small business presented life-altering challenges. His engaging patter that entices and entertains the locals, coupled with his fluent English for tourists, boosts sales of skewers of chicken, pork and beef, as well as more authentic Chinese delicacies such as crispy pig intestines with sour pickles.

Melancholia has eased thanks in large measure to his “found family”: girlfriend Nancy, a student at top-rated National Taiwan University, and his two surrogate uncles, longtime employees of his parents. They are indigenous Taiwanese Dwayne “The Rock” Amis and wiry former soldier and political prisoner of indeterminate age Frankie the Cat, both of whom would lay down their lives for Jing-nan. Nancy often worked in swift harmony with the team to prepare food and serve customers, frequently selling out before daylight.

With its own dining area and restroom, Unknown Pleasures was one of the larger food stalls in the Shilin market. As a prerequisite for resuming his education at university, Jing-nan is studying “Concepts in Business Management” at night school. The other “prerequisite” is that Nancy won’t consider marriage until he completes the degree he started in the USA.

Going Deep Undercover at a Sketchy Food-Processing Plant

While taking out the trash following a long shift, Jing-nan discovers a corpse lying next to the dumpsters, later identified as Juan Ramos, a Philippine national foreign worker employed at the massive food-processing plant ZHD. The heartbroken Ramos family arrives days later seeking answers. It emerges that ZHD has an extensive history of safety and human rights violations.

Local law enforcement is well acquainted with Jing-nan, as he has previously unwittingly stumbled into murder cases and conducted successful investigations. His well-known gangster uncle, Big Eye, encourages his nephew to go undercover at ZHD to solve the murder, locate Juan’s missing brother, Paolo (who was doing his own detective work), and also for Big Eye’s own undisclosed reasons. It’s an all-consuming and risky business as employees are required to live on-site, cell phones are prohibited, and the work week is six days. Pay is low, deductions are made for food and lodging and as Jing-nan learns firsthand, even minor medical treatments for on-the-job injuries are billed.

Ed Lin masterfully depicts the plight of often undocumented migrant workers in the vibrant international city of Taipei, which is increasingly dependent on a large number of job seekers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia in the blue-collar areas of manufacturing, agriculture, domestic work and unskilled healthcare services. These disadvantaged laborers often pay outrageous fees to job brokers while receiving lower wages, unpaid overtime and a paucity of benefits in addition to poor living conditions. Jing-nan is alert, adept and has several guardian angels in human form watching out for him as he risks life and limb while learning to manufacture ZHD’s addictive junk food.

The Dead Can’t Make a Living is fast-paced, lively and wildly entertaining, sprinkled liberally with humor and action-packed, dangerous situations with a myriad of uniquely fascinating characters. Unseen Pleasures and the Shilin Night Market may whet your appetite to travel, browse for souvenir bargains and consume tempting Taiwanese delicacies. One hopes Ed Lin won’t wait another four years to publish a sequel!

Note: Since the publication of this novel, Joy Division/New Order was selected as 2026 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.