Dial A for Aunties

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a novel that blends the cozy mystery, romantic comedy, and contemporary domestic fiction genres within the context of Chinese Indonesian culture. It follows the comedic shenanigans of the Chan family: After a bad date results in an accidental murder, Meddy Chan, her mother, and her three outspoken, bickering aunties must hide the body—and keep it hidden—all while working a high-profile wedding. Meddy, in juggling all that, also finds herself rekindling a romance with an old flame. Unbeknownst to the women, the alleged corpse has a bigger role to play than they expected. Dial A for Aunties was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2021, nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction (2021), and won the UK Comedy Women in Print Prize (2021). The sequel, Four Aunties and a Wedding, was published in 2022, and the film rights for Dial A for Aunties were purchased by Netflix.

Sutanto, who grew up in Jakarta and Singapore, received a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Her family migrated to Indonesia from China in the 1920s-1930s and currently speaks a mix of Bahasa Indonesia, Mandarin, and English with varying levels of fluency depending on the generation. Sutanto draws on her own experience and the experiences of her family in characterizing Meddy and the aunts; this book, like many of Sutanto’s other best-selling works, reflects her pride in her heritage.

The novel explores four main themes: Familial Duty Versus Independence, The Karmic Justice of Honesty and Lies, Loyalty Versus Fear and Selfishness, and Intergenerational Immigration. The following symbols and motifs are also present: the Corpse, which represents secrets; the Camera, which represents isolation/distance; the Tea Ceremony Gifts, which represent desires/desperation; and the Wedding, which represents change.

This guide references the Berkeley (2021, 1st ed.) edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

Growing up, Meddy Chan feared the family “curse” of male abandonment. She was raised by her outspoken mother and three aunts (Big Aunt, Second Aunt, and Fourth Aunt), all of whom are Chinese Indonesian immigrants to the US. As a young adult, Meddy dreams of leaving her family and starting her own life somewhere far away, but she believes that to be a good daughter, she must remain at home. Therefore, she attends a local university. There, she meets the love of her life, Nathan Chan. However, fearing future heartbreak and familial strife, Meddy breaks up with him at graduation without ever telling her family about him. After returning home from college with a degree in photography, Meddy joins the family wedding business at her relatives’ behest, though she still longs for independence.

The present-day events of the novel begin with Meddy’s family setting her up on a date without her consent. The date is allegedly a hotelier who will be hosting a high-profile wedding that the family will be working the following day. The date goes horribly wrong and, after Meddy acts in self-defense, results in the man’s apparently dead body in her car. Panicking, Meddy brings the body home and begs for her family’s help. The aunts descend, and after some debate, agree that hiding the body is the best course of action, but only after the wedding. The Chans store the body in a cooler at Big Aunt’s bakery. However, it is accidentally sent to the wedding venue along with the other wedding supplies.

Soon after arriving at the venue, Meddy encounters the local sheriff, who resents the hotel and the tourism industry it represents; the sheriff also has little to no respect for the Chinese Indonesian guests and staff. The Chans’ concern grows when they realize that, although Meddy’s date was not actually dead when put in the cooler, he is definitely dead now. Worse still, the corpse belongs not to the hotelier, but to Ma’s lily supplier, Ah Guan (Ma is the florist in the business). The real hotelier is Nathan, Meddy’s ex, who remains the one secret Meddy kept from her family. Shenanigans ensue as the squabbling aunts with sibling rivalries attempt to help Meddy with the body while competing with each other. At the same time, Meddy and Nathan start to rekindle their former romance, albeit while hampered by the corpse drama.

Meanwhile, the wedding must go on. Tom Cruise Sutopo and Jacqueline Wijaya, both from wealthy, prominent Chinese Indonesian families, are due to wed. The success (or lack thereof) of the wedding will make or break both the Chans’ and Nathan’s careers. However, all is not well in the wedding party, either. While the bridal party is all set, led by Jacqueline’s best friend and maid of honor, Maureen, the groomsmen are a mess—they partied too hard and are in no shape for a wedding. Meddy helps the wedding party with damage control while balancing corpse concealment and her own blossoming romance with increasing difficulty. Eventually, the corpse is hidden in the Chans’ hotel room. When Nathan visits, only to spot Ah Guan’s feet, he misunderstands the situation, thinking Meddy has a new boyfriend. Meddy can’t correct him and is devastated. In her despair, she reveals her relationship with Nathan to Ma, who is—to Meddy’s surprise—empathetic.

Another hurdle occurs after the tea ceremony portion of the wedding festivities. During the ceremony, Tom and Jacqueline receive about US$2 million’s worth of gifts from wedding guests, which Meddy helps Maureen move to the bridal suite. However, Maureen and Ah Guan are actually in cahoots; Maureen, unaware of Ah Guan’s death, calls his phone repeatedly, demanding that he come take “the goods”—the tea ceremony gifts. Meddy, desperate to keep Ah Guan’s death a secret, takes them in his stead. When the gifts are discovered missing, Maureen frames Meddy for theft, calling Ah Guan and informing him of this development. Furious, Meddy hides the gifts in Maureen’s room, framing her in turn. (Since Meddy’s room will be searched, the aunts are in charge of once again hiding Ah Guan’s corpse.) When the gifts are later found in Maureen’s suite, she is sent away in disgrace. Jacqueline is devastated, while Tom goes on a power trip.

Meddy attempts to comfort a devasted Jacqueline, who confesses some of the depth of her feelings for Maureen. Nonetheless, the wedding ceremony commences. Concerned with the incomprehensible updates from her family, Meddy can only hope that all is well. However, the arrival of the groomsmen proves otherwise: they are very clearly drunk and high. To Meddy’s shock, Ah Guan’s corpse is among them. Although Meddy and Jacqueline attempt to quietly send the groomsmen away, Tom resists, resulting in the discovery of Ah Guan’s corpse on the altar.

While Nathan clears away the crowd, Meddy confronts the aunts, who reveal their concealment plan: They hid Ah Guan, disguised as a groomsman, in the groom’s suite, since the groomsmen were too hungover to notice. As an extra precaution, the aunts gave the groomsmen a combination of alcohol and marijuana, unaware of the effects of mixing the two substances. The tripping groomsmen dragged Ah Guan to the altar with them by accident. Furious, Meddy explodes and reveals her other secret—wanting to quit the family business. The aunts don’t react well, but Meddy stalks off, still angry.

Meanwhile, the sheriff is called in. He disrespects Ah Guan’s corpse and baselessly arrests Nathan for murder. Meddy, furious about this too, pretends to be Nathan’s attorney and confronts the sheriff. The sheriff doesn’t free Nathan, but reluctantly gives them a few minutes of privacy. Meddy confesses to Nathan about Ah Guan’s corpse, but Nathan had already realized the truth. Their conversation ends with a mutual desire for romance and the stubborn determination to each take the fall for the other, no matter the cost.

Meddy returns to her hotel room to find Maureen holding her family at gunpoint. Maureen overheard the Chans discussing Ah Guan’s corpse after the canceled wedding ceremony, and she attempts to extort them with a recording of their admission. Maureen compels Meddy to steal the tea ceremony gifts again, revealing that Maureen only wanted to steal the gifts to stop the wedding because Tom is such a terrible person and Jacqueline deserves better. Meddy finds Jacqueline—still devastated about Maureen—and realizes the truth. Meddy convinces Jacqueline to accompany her back to Meddy’s hotel room and tricks Maureen into confessing her love to Jacqueline. Jacqueline reveals herself and her (mutual) feelings for Maureen. Afterward, Jacqueline and Maureen help the Chans make up a story about Ah Guan’s corpse to feed the sheriff. Nathan is freed. Meddy reconciles with her family.

Time passes. Maureen and Jacqueline marry. Tom Cruise Sutopo marries someone else. The Chans’ wedding business is booming. Meddy and Nathan are dating and cohabiting; Meddy has also left the family business to start her own photography studio, though she remains close with her family, both personally and professionally. The novel ends with the Chans’ weekly dim sum gathering, during which Nathan proposes and Meddy ecstatically accepts.