I do love the tagline- She was trouble, so is her ghost.
First book of the year (well first review), first CBR Passport book (book about another country). This was a book that i suggested for my IRL book club (because i already owned it), so the review considers their responses as well.
While I have owned “Sorcerer to the Crown” for a number of years I have never quite gotten into it and it took reading a book of short stories by Zen Cho for me to be interested in the author. The short stories covered a range of topics, but there were a number that used Malaysian and South East Asian supernatural stories. So when i saw this at my local book shop, I grabbed it.
I have noticed a trend in the books I recommend for my book club- a lot of them tend to be Third Culture Kid adjacent characters and look at the issues of balancing home culture against lived culture. So they do look at more diverse cultures (a lot of our books are Australiana or world war focused).
The book focuses on Jess, a young Malaysian woman who emigrated to the USA with her parents when she was young. Jess is not her real name, it is short for Jessamyn, which is the name her parents used when they moved to the USA. Her “real” name is spoken once in the novel. The emigrant experience was not wholly positive for her family- her father struggled to get work initially, having to leave the USA and leave his wife and daughter there for a time. Jess did manage to get into Harvard and at the time of the book has recently graduated. Her father became ill with cancer recently, and while he has recovered he lost his job and the family has returned to Malaysia (Penang) and are staying with his sister’s family.
I liked that the book throws us into Malaysian culture and life without a lot of explanation (in the same way most English language books assume you understand the relevant culture in England/USA/Australia etc). My book club were not fans of this approach. Occasionally there is an explanation of how things work, usually because Jess doesn’t know and has to ask. The book is about Malaysian supernatural entities, the mix that exists with the mix of cultures- Chinese, Malay, European and Indian. I like reading about this, and am comfortable with not always knowing exactly what was happening, book club was not. In all fairness, i have probably read some novels that did cover different elements that appear here, so i did have a bit of familiarity. I also thought the lack of explanation reflected Jess’s confusion – she doesn’t know the right information to understand what is happening, and the best way to communicate this is by not giving the reader the info either.
The characters speak in an English variant that reflects the linguistics of Malaysia – it’s English but the phrasing and word use are not as they are used in the Anglosphere. Different characters use language differently- Jess’s English is fairly standard, as she would be very comfortable in US usage, her mother is also fairly standard, although some expressions and grammar elements are not- the aunties and other characters are more distinct. When the characters are indicated to be speaking another language there are no pidgin words. I liked this, i felt it reflected how language is used and the melting pot element. My book club hated this – they felt it was racist and condescending. I am not sure if this reflects personal experience as well- I “taught” English conversation for a few years in Japan, and English use there, while it may be understandable and accessible is still different from how a native speaker in Australia (or elsewhere) would speak. A writer who can show those differences effectively is good- those differences are part of what makes life there what it is.
Jess is living at her aunt’s house, doesn’t have a job and is hiding her calls to her girlfriend in Singapore so her parents don’t find out she is gay. Jess is not a likeable main character, and this did influence my reading. The book starts with the ghost of her grandmother asking her if her parents know she is gay(using a Malay slur that she has to ask her mother about). Jess takes a while to understand why her grandmother is haunting her, and that it is her grandmother.
Her grandmother was the medium for a spirit/small deity, Black Water Sister. She needs Jess to help defend the temple area where her shrine is against a developer. But there is more going on than the grandmother is willing to talk about.
The book is about family secrets, family interactions and the devastation caused by long ago actions.
Jess unravels some secrets her grandmother took to the grave, while managing to keep the secret of her haunting from her parents.
I enjoyed the food descriptions and the descriptions of life in Penang- they captured the sensations of daily life- including the heat and the tempo of life in a tangible way. I found Jess frustrating, i found the resolution of the issues somewhat frustrating- it is a combination of the secrets and Jess’s own experience and life that resolves the story. I will admit i had trouble reading this for long periods of time- i think it was the frustration with Jess that did that, so it took me a while to finish.
Overall 3 stars. I did find it hard to read in some parts, but the descriptions were so good, and there were moments of intensity that were excellent
