Tiger’s Mouth is an engaging novel about modern characters and technology, as well as the age-old dynamics of relationships, friendships, and power struggles. The two main characters, Jack Owens and Jack Chen, meet while interning at K. O. Systems, a data-driven health care technology company owned by Keith Owens, the father of one of the Jacks. Chen has lied about his credentials to obtain the internship, and Owens has connections. However, Owens reluctantly took the internship since he has little regard for his father and his company, and was on the verge of suicide when he showed up at K.0. While contemplating a jump off a building in New York City, Chen talked Owens down, and they became fast friends.
Owens comes from a privileged background, while Chen’s family struggles. I appreciated how they developed a mutually beneficial relationship, with Chen not only providing project ideas and coding skills but also offering emotional support that Owens desperately needed. Owens had seemingly infinite financial resources and a blood connection with the powerful boss. The relationship became more than a work relationship when Chen and his girlfriend, Caty, began spending much of their leisure time with Owens. All seems good until the power differential between Chen and Owens leads to a major betrayal and rift. Although both Owens and Chen continue working at K.O. Systems after their internships, they take different paths. The characters’ backgrounds shape how they navigate adulthood. They clearly view the world differently.
As the author develops the characters and their careers, the metaphor of the title, “Tiger’s Mouth,” becomes more apparent. The personal and professional lives of the characters are replete with risky and dangerous decisions. The world of work is more competitive than cooperative, and tough choices put relationships with colleagues and clients in peril. For much of the novel, Chen is rather naive about the ruthlessness of Keith Owens and the company’s decision-makers. Jack Owens, on the other hand, is painfully aware that his father values money and power over integrity. I enjoyed how the author uses Samantha Owens, Keith’s daughter and Jack’s sister, to mediate some family conflict, but the men and their issues are the main sources of the plot and conflict.
I like reading about complex characters, and I enjoyed the ones that Lucy Tan included in this book. She did a good job depicting male friendships and father/son dynamics. The inclusion of app development and the use of data for AI were interesting parts of the story, and I think she showed how many tech workers may be misled or purposely blind to the downsides of being on the cutting edge of technology, especially when dealing with medical data. I highly recommend this 21st-century tale of human drama.