Certainty
-
- £10.99
-
- £10.99
Publisher Description
In present-day Vancouver, Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries, is haunted by the mysterious events in her father's childhood in war-torn Asia, and using her skills as a journalist is driven to unravel the mystery of his past. As a boy, Matthew Lim hid in the jungle fringe near Leila Road in Japanese-occupied Sandakan, North Borneo, with Ani, a girl whose friendship shapes the rest of his life. Together they barely survive the terrifying events of the war, which shatters their families and ultimately splits them apart - until years later, they meet again, only to endure another separation.
At once sweeping and intimate, Certainty crosses continents, cultures and time to explore the legacies of loss, the dislocations of war and the redemptive qualities of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thien's debut novel draws its meager impetus from the tale of Matthew and Ani, two 10-year-olds in the village of Sandakan in Japanese-occupied Borneo during WWII, whose lyrical idylls buffer them from the horrors of war. Romance blossoms when they reunite eight years later, in 1953, but their past Matthew's dead father collaborated with the Japanese splits them up, sending the secretly pregnant Ani off to Jakarta and Matthew to Vancouver and a marriage (to Clara). Matthew and Ani's saga intertwines with the latter-day story of Matthew and Clara's daughter, Gail, a radio documentary maker, whose cozy but bland relationship is buffeted by an affair and who decides to find out about her father's mysterious past with Ani. Thien (Simple Recipes) uses this narrative as a peg for much elegiac meditation interspersed with muzzy reflections on fractals, code breaking and snowflake formation her metaphor for the minute contingencies that shape human motivation. Her prose is poised but wan, and the patchwork story, despite jolts of tragic history, doesn't elicit much interest in her characters or their roads not taken.
