THIS PLACE CALLED ABSENCE
Lydia Kwa, . . Kensington, $23 (218pp) ISBN 978-0-88801-243-2
In Kwa's debut novel—already published in Canada—four narrators tell two stories, one of a contemporary Chinese-Canadian psychologist mourning the death of her father, another of two Chinese prostitutes in early 20th-century Singapore. As the novel opens in 1994, Wu Lan has just begun a year's leave of absence from the Vancouver, B.C., clinic where she sees patients: her father committed suicide at home in Singapore, and Wu Lan has had a breakdown after returning from the funeral. To distract herself, she begins researching the sex trade in Singapore, and Kwa introduces three other narrators: Lee Ah Choi, whose parents sell her into prostitution for three sacks of rice; Chow Chat Mui, who flees her father's sexual abuse only to find herself tricked into prostitution; and Mahmee, Wu Lan's mother, who grieves over her husband's death and her daughter's flight from her native city. As the novel progresses, Wu Lan slowly makes peace with her memories of her father, her roots and the recent loss of her girlfriend, while Ah Choi and Chat Mui fall in love and try to escape the usual fate of Chinese prostitutes (or
Reviewed on: 01/21/2002
Genre: Fiction
Hardcover - 218 pages - 978-0-7582-0147-8
Paperback - 218 pages - 978-0-7582-0148-5