Retrieved from: my local bookshop0802170188, 2006
Suggested by: the owner
My Ratings: 8 Merit, 7 Interest, 7 Fun
Set in 1967 in Hong Kong, this short novel follows two young teenage girls as they struggle to understand the dangers of world they are living in. Their father is a photographer for Time who lives only when he is in Vietnam taking pictures of the war. Their mother is distant, painting pretty pictures and avoiding thinking of anything bad, a bit of a talisman to keep her husband safe. She doesn't seem to notice, or be able to do anything about the fact that her oldest daughter is rapidly spiraling out of control.
The girls are watched over by a nanny, an amah, who calls them "white ghost girls" (and sometimes "little whores") in Chinese. The younger sister, Kate, is the narrator; she is looking back at this summer from adulthood trying to figure out if there was anything she did that could have been undone or done differently to change the path.
The girls are as different as can be: Kate introverted and quiet, Frankie extroverted and showy. After a frightening, guilt-inducing event in the marketplace, Frankie begins to desperately cry for more attention from her mother, her sister, anyone who can give it. Mostly, however, she wants her father to love her as much as he loves the war. Kate is stuck trying to cover for Frankie and keep her out of trouble, a thankless and impossible task.
As the story progresses, the atmosphere, never light, becomes more and more claustrophobic until the reader is almost gasping for air along with the characters. A sad, sad book about loss, sisters, and how we can't keep one another from making awful choices.
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