Sweetside Motel, by Canadian author EL Chen, is a mixture of psychological thriller and horror that packs a punch. The novella begins with Sarah desperately fleeing from Toronto, until her car breaks down in a small, remote country town named Sweetside.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s plea for help is rejected by the townsfolk. It is the early COVID years when the world is swamped by anxiety, suspicion, paranoia and fear. Any outsider is required to quarantine, especially those from big cities. She is thus assigned a room in a deteriorating roadside inn nicknamed “Suicide Motel”.
Worse, Sarah is ethnic Chinese and has endured racism and xenophobia all her life. When the windows of her motel room are smashed and the poisonous phrase “chink virus” smeared across her door, she is forced to stay with the motel’s owners, brothers Caleb and Elijah. They have her sleeping in their dead father’s old bedroom and constantly remind her to lock her door.
As Sarah’s sense of claustrophobia and entrapment grows, increasingly malicious shadows appear to be lurking around the house. Soon, Sarah’s past is catching up to her. The dark secrets behind Caleb’s and Elijah’s peculiar behaviours are also revealed…
To this reviewer, the major theme explored in this story is mask wearing. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, masks help limit the transmission of the Covid-19 virus. But they also conceal a person’s identity and facial expression, making it difficult to decipher their true intentions.
Meanwhile, being female and Asian, Sarah has to wear masks of a different kind. The social “norm” here is that Asian people are expected to be quiet, friendly and polite, always pleasant and cooperative, always “work hard and blend in”, not to draw any attention or cause any trouble.
Indeed, “being nice” is how Sarah survives in a society dominated by white males. “These are men who never have to think about how much space they take up because they’re used to people making room for them.” Just like her ex-boyfriend Ben: “The breadth of his shoulders, the unapologetic way he cuts through a space. The way his anger uses up all the air in the room so there’s none left for her to breathe.”
Yet, in this story, “being nice” is further linked to basic survival in abusive relationships. Particularly in cases of domestic violence, it is often the victims who need to “make nice, accept the apology, because otherwise, the storm will break again”.
Finally, for the victims in this story, “being nice” as a form of mask wearing has a third and most profound meaning. Focusing on how these victims work hard to act nice because they are afraid of becoming their abusers, the author alerts us of the notion that violence begets violence. Such is the deep trauma that long-term domestic abuse can cause.
In this sense, Sweetside Motel is a powerful story of social commentary. Highly recommended.
Note: This book review was originally titled “Story as social commentary” and published under the title “Sweetside Motel” by Ranges Trader Star Mail, March 10, 2026, P.20.
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 