A delightful aspect of historical fiction is the way the present gives way to the past, shifting our knowledge of the modern world into what it once was. In Marivi Soliven's new novel, Taxi Dancer (Red Hen Press, 240 pages), we get a time-capsule view of downtown San Diego, a century before it was baseball and tourism, when it was called the Stingaree and the nightclubs were unlike anything resembling the Gaslamp's current offerings. Using different narrative techniques, including shifting perspectives and points of view, Soliven immerses us in the city, the time period, and the eclectic characters who lived it. It also brings to light the economic inequality and racism of this particular place and era, and causes us to ask whether those injustices have truly disappeared.

While focusing on Eli's story, Taxi Dancer firmly immerses us in the sights, sounds, and racial strain of 1930s California. There's direct tension between the Filipino immigrants and the white residents, particularly the Oakies sharing a similar economic profile. We're frequently reminded that Eli and Lucinda are under constant threat of violence just by appearing together in public. Lucinda also becomes more than a simple symbol of forbidden love, herself an example of how impossible it can be to build a life from nothing. The novel necessarily focuses heavily on the politics of the time, portraying Filipino immigrants with a great deal of sympathy. They're not responsible for the laws or the racial attitudes of white people, nor are they to blame for the depressed economic conditions hampering everyone. They're simply immigrants searching for a new life in America. As Dolores, one of the taxi dancers, notes, "You Filipinos are dreamers, the lot of you." That delicate handling of the historical time period is essential because it grounds the novel's larger argument about Eli.

Taxi Dancer is essentially arranged in four sections: Before, After, The Trial, and Paloma. The Before section builds chronologically from a year before Amado's murder to just a few days prior. It offers snapshots of key details, people, and relationships, giving us the feeling of hearing testimony in court from different witnesses. After the murder, when Eli flees town, the story continues to move chronologically up to the beginning of the trial. Still, it frequently shifts between characters to show how Eli is attempting to evade arrest while Lucinda and others respond to news of Amado's death and Eli's potential involvement. In a physical departure from the rest of the text, the Paloma section details how Eli's sister in the Philippines deals with the situation unfolding in San Diego. The narration often shifts between different characters’ perspectives in different chapters, giving insight into everyone’s feelings and letting the reader view the story as a jury might judge a defendant.

Or, rather than (or in addition to) members of a jury, it gives us the sense of watching a story unfold on the stage. Some chapters begin with quotes from people involved in the murder, potential witnesses, and a newspaper reporter covering the case. They provide commentary, like a Greek chorus, offering opinions about the events unfolding. The book also includes several passages from Paul Cressey's 1932 book, The Taxi-Dance Hall, offering factual information about taxi dancers and their roles in America at the time, like an off-stage narrative boost.

At first glance, the novel presents like a classic mystery, but it quickly reveals itself as something deeper. The Prologue establishes the primary facts: Amado is shot, and Eli is the prime suspect. The way Amado's death is actually written strips away much of the mystery around who killed him and the circumstances that led to his death. That choice instead shifts our focus to a subtler dilemma: if Eli is found guilty, how much punishment does he truly deserve? The novel grapples with several intertwined themes, most notably the search for justice, the desire for belonging, and the conflict between personal identity and societal constraints. The word deserve becomes the novel’s heartbeat, lingering in the mind but not generating suspense on its own. Instead, the real tension lies in trying to determine what might happen to Eli and Lucinda if Eli is convicted, particularly in light of extenuating circumstances. The novel also teases a Perry Mason-esque courtroom twist that does not land with the same TV-drama flourish. Instead of a pulse-pounding finale, the novel offers the chance for reflection, urging readers to wrestle with its moral and social questions.

The novel’s structure and the author’s careful choices invite a familiar question: does the ending deliver what the reader expects? Or, perhaps more intriguingly, does it even need to? From the outset, Eli’s status as a suspect is never in doubt, and by shifting away from a classic whodunit, the novel instead sends a specific message in its examination of Eli's life. It does not aim to scrutinize the "fairness" of the judicial system in the 1930s, nor does it highlight the system's limits without also showing how larger social pressures shape Eli's situation. Quoting the 1932 text is key because it sharpens that argument. One line in that text is especially important: "Filipinos in the United States are also embarrassed by restrictions upon their freedom to marry and by uncertainties as to their racial classification." That passage helps us understand that the novel is not simply about a legal case, but more about how racism and impossible economic circumstances shape lives, and how impossible it was to climb the social ladder in 1930s America.

Taxi Dancer aims to be a specific type of novel, and it deserves credit for sticking to the story Soliven wants to tell and building to an ending that weaves in an important aspect of history as Eli dreams of being a free man. It offers a conclusion to the story of many early 20th-century Filipino immigrants that few of us likely know about. The novel is also not preachy, but it seems meant to re-examine a difficult time in American history and show how that history can still matter today. Read through a larger scope, the purpose of the ending is clear. Readers shouldn't expect a multi-layered mystery or a tight courtroom drama, but rather a broader picture of the desperate economic and social conditions faced by a particular group of oppressed immigrants, and how those conditions can breed desperation and bad decisions.