On the eve of her mother's wake, Grace Tay flies to Singapore to join her father and brother and her mother's family. Here she explores her family history, looking for the answers to her mother's death.
This beautiful and moving novel steps between Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, evoking the life, the traditions and tastes of a forceful Chinese family as well as the hardship, the cruelty and pain. Written in a fresh, contemporary voice, this is a story about resilience, a story about migration, but in many ways it is a story about what it means to love and be in love, to be a mother or father or child.
Winner of the 1999 'The Australian'/Vogel Literary Award.