Patron Saints of Nothing

The novel’s brief opening chapter recounts Jay’s visit to his father’s family in the Philippines at age 10. The family dog birthed a large litter, but one by one each died from the mother’s neglect. Jay embraces the last surviving puppy and attempts to feed it evaporated milk to keep it alive. It dies. The boy is devastated, but the family is indifferent: “Another day. Another dog” (xvi). Only Jay’s cousin Jun consoles him. Although only three days older than Jay, Jun “was one of those people who moved through the world as if he had been around for a long time” (xvii).

The narrative then advances back to Michigan, where Jay is a senior in high school. It is April, and Jay knows he should be more excited about going to the University of Michigan in the fall. As he hangs out with his friend Seth, skipping class and smoking a joint on the roof of the nearby elementary school, Jay admits to himself that he is drifting. He is unimpressed with the opportunity of college despite his family’s faith in the importance of education. His father is a first-generation Filipino immigrant who now works as a neonatal intensive care unit nurse. His American-born mother is a respected doctor at the same hospital. His father preaches tirelessly to his youngest son the importance of hard work to success in America. Jay’s older siblings have both found their way to the American Dream.

One afternoon, out of nowhere, while Jay is deep into a video game, Jay’s father informs him that Jun is dead. Jay is unexpectedly moved. The two cousins had maintained a letter-writing friendship for several years after the family’s visit, although that correspondence eventually lapsed. Jay always thought emails or instant messages would have been far easier, but Jun insisted on letters. Jay asks his father what happened, expecting it to be a car accident. His father answers, “It doesn’t matter” (9). The answer baffles Jay. Alone in his room, Jay feels his confusion and sadness turn to anger, “like the roots of a plant in too small a pot” (11). He wonders why he feels so affected and remembers months earlier, when his father mentioned over dinner that Jun had run away from home.

Desperate, Jay retrieves a shoebox with Jun’s old letters from under his bed and reads the last letter his cousin sent some three years earlier. It describes Jun’s sadness over his family and his country, and how he could no longer pretend that he did not see the reality all around him. Jay struggles with guilt over never answering the cousin’s letter, which seems heartbreaking in retrospect. For the first time, Jay considers that Jun’s death might have been a suicide.

The next morning Jay’s mother tries to answer his questions about Jun’s death. She says that Jun was addicted to a street drug, shabu, a derivative of methamphetamine that is both cheap and potent. She explains the Philippine government’s ongoing war on drug addicts, directed by the newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte. Under the promise of restoring law and order, Duterte has instructed the country’s police to crack down on sellers and users by dispensing with the protocols of due process. Drug users are rounded up and summarily executed. Jay’s mother suggests that upward of 20,000 Filipinos, mostly the poor and unemployed, have been killed already. She suspects Jun was most likely shot by the police. These revelations torment Jay, who believes Jun’s death might have been prevented had Jay responded to his last letter.

Jay goes online to learn about conditions in the Philippines, specifically the government’s campaign to eliminate drug users. His eyes are opened to the conditions in his native country, and he observes that “[t]ruth is a hungry thing” (29). Unexpectedly, Jay receives an anonymous message on Instagram that tells him Jun did not deserve to die, that he did nothing wrong. Jay feels he must go to the Philippines to get to the bottom of his cousin’s death. He asks his parents’ permission to fly to the Philippines over spring break. He denies any intent to investigate Jun’s death and instead asserts that he wants to reestablish ties with his Filipino identity and bond with his Filipino family. After some cajoling, his parents agree, but only on the condition that Jay does not mention Jun. Jay agrees. He will stay for two weeks, initially with the family of his Uncle Maning, Jun’s father, and later with other relatives. Within days Jay is flying to Manila, all the while feeling Jun’s ghost hovering.

During the long flight, Jay reads one of Jun’s letters (he packed the entire bundle). The letter recounts how Jun was accosted going into church by a starving mother carrying a baby. The woman was desperate to give her child away, hoping that some stranger might be willing to care for it. Jun wanted to help but was stopped by his mother, who tells him that there is nothing that can be done. Reading the letter now, Jay finds himself in tears. There is no way that Jun was a drug addict. He braces himself to meet Jun’s family, particularly Uncle Maning. Jay is determined to stand up to his uncle and ferret out the truth of Jun’s death.

At the Manila airport, Jay is confronted by the reality of his different-ness. He feels awkwardly American. He hears little English in the terminal and sees few white people. He is met by his aunt and his cousins. They drive through Manila in the family’s luxurious air-conditioned SUV. Jay catches glimpses of poor neighborhoods as they drive but says nothing. Jun once mentioned the deplorable conditions in Manila’s slums. Jay tries to engage his cousin Grace, two years younger, in chit chat, but she buries herself in a book. He lamely asks whether it is a Harry Potter book. Grace ignores him (she is in fact reading an historic account of the Philippines’ long struggle for independence). Jay is startled by a rap at the car window. A young girl, dressed in filthy, ragged clothes, wants a handout. The family knows to ignore it, but Jay rolls down the window and gives the girl money. His aunt scolds him, saying, “They are like ants […] You will never get rid of them all” (77).

The SUV pulls up to the family’s home on the outskirts of Manila. It is a spacious, well-appointed house behind sturdy security gates—appropriate lodgings for the family of a man high up in the government. Jay is given a quick tour of the home and is impressed by its expensive furnishings, elegant decorations, and arctic air-conditioning. When he asks about his aunts Chato and Ines, with whom he will stay in a few days, he is told curtly and without explanation that he is not to mention their names. Jay quickly realizes that he is considered an outsider. His own family sees him as an American, a visitor, not a Filipino, and certainly not a member of the family. Jay is shown to the guest room, which is actually Jun’s old room. Jay finds no evidence that Jun ever lived there, no clothes, no books, no photos.

Jay meets his uncle later at dinner. His uncle seems cold, aloof, distant. Jay decides not to ask about Jun yet. During dinner, Maning lectures Jay about how Americans long oppressed the Filipino people, occupied their country, exploited their workers and the islands’ abundant resources. When Jay returns to his room, he discovers the box of Jun’s letters is missing from his backpack. The mystery is on.