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Wiz Wharton tells the story of Lily (Ghost Girl, one who is bi-racial but not belonging to either race) and her mother, Sook-Yin (Banana because she's only yellow on the outside). Sook-Yin mostly tells the story in the first and second narratives before, and after she died, then we have Lily's description in the present. Soon-Yin was studying in the UK to become a nurse when two things happened to her; Sook-Yin married a "Westerner," and she came into a good fortune that would cause a rift in her family dynamics, leading to jealousy and hatred lasting long after Sook-Yins death. Years later, inheritance to Lily would come about, and she would search for answers to the mystery surrounding her mother in Hong Kong. Lily’s mother, Sook Yin left Hong Kong in 1966, for London to train in becoming a nurse but failed due to circumstances. She met Lily’s father, Julian, who seemed to good to be true. Life was not easy and the bed was not always full of roses. Sook Yin was faced with challenges just by being her in a foreign land. Sook Yin left Hong Kong as she was told that she didn’t belong there, and now leaving London because she was told the same too? So, where did she really belong? I also came to appreciate the dual element of the title, as revealed through the plot, really emphasising and expressing the theme of identity and prejudice both women dealt with. The author's writing style is stunning and immersive and pulls you along through Lily and Sook Yin's stories.
Fresh, funny, infuriating, heartbreaking - Ghost Girl, Banana is sure to be a massive hit. I adored it' Emily Koch This book started slow for me but it builds momentum throughout until I was racing through it, unable to pit it down until I polished off the second half in one sitting.An intriguing, beautifully written study of the stories we inherit. I loved being in Lily and Sook-Yin's heads, my heart breaking for them . . . I loved it!" - Nikki May Londoner Lily Chen descends into the maze of 1990s Hong Kong to piece together her late mother’s secret past in this slow-burning mystery.
Wharton’s ambitious first novel extends beyond this complex family saga about immigrants’ trials and tribulations to interweave two narratives of mother and daughter like a double helix. While Sook-Yin’s secret history in the 70s is told in the third person, the novel is framed through Lily’s searching first-person voice. In 1966 Sook-Yin leaves her home behind in Hong Kong and travels to London to start her new life. She’s not quite sure what to expect, but she’s determined she’s going to make it work. My immigrant mother had died and left me with half an identity about as useful as a broken mug,” Lily says in London in 1997. Lost, depressed and feeling inferior to her elder sister Maya, Lily’s quest for her heritage is sparked when she is unexpectedly named in the will of a wealthy Chinese stranger. She faces the life-changing prospect of inheriting half a million pounds on the condition that she visits Hong Kong to sign the papers. JW: How has having a community of writers around you helped with your writing journey? Do you have any advice for writers trying to find their community? Years later, when Lily receives an unexpected inheritance from a mystery benefactor in Hong Kong, she decides to travel to her mother’s birthplace to find out why – and uncovers the secrets her family have been hiding for so long.
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Another aspect I found didn’t work was that Lily’s visit to Hong Kong coincided with the British handover of Hong Kong and while this had some interesting historical connections it felt like a tokenistic addition. A story of family, love, redemption and belonging, told with such heart and empathy. Wiz Wharton is a phenomenal talent, original, fresh, and with a pinpoint clarity to her prose that cuts right to the bone. She has created such a special book, with a story that needs to be told. Essential and utterly unforgettable’ Fíona Scarlett, author of Boys Don’t Cry In Sook-Yin’s chapters, we follow her as she journeys from Hong Kong to England where despite her best efforts she finds herself having to make the best of unforeseen circumstances that lead to taking a nannying position at a childhood acquaintance's household. Through her ‘employers’ she meets a white British man who promises her a working opportunity that however never comes to fruition. Rather, he pursues her and pressures her into going out with him. Even at a long distance Sook-Yin’s brother continues to berate her and sways their mother’s opinion of her (that she is a failure, a disappointment, good-for-nothing, etc.). Sook-Yin’s reputation and well-being are threatened by an unexpected pregnancy, which leaves her with little choice but to marry Julian. Julian is manipulative, often playing the part of a loving, or inoffensive at least, husband who makes one disastrous financial mistake after the other. They eventually move to Hong Kong where Sook-Yin is reunited with a boy she harbored feelings for, now a wealthy married man, who also happens to be friends with her brother. Sook-Yin’s brother seems determined to make her life hell as he continues to behave appalling towards her, berating her for having married a ‘colonizer’ and for having had children with a white man. His hatred for her is so strong that he seems intent on sowing discord in her marriage. The first rule of life is pretending. It was all a charade. A big bluff. The most surprising thing, however, was that as much as these people had deceived her, they seemed to have deceived themselves too. Was this the secret to belonging? Her cynicism turned to curiosity.” After giving them to her sister, who had a disc reader, Wharton received a phone call. “She told me they were Mum’s diaries, which she had started when she moved from Hong Kong to the UK. My sister said I shouldn't read them because they were so heartbreaking, but I wanted to. When I was growing up, Mum was stoic, as was typical of her generation but also because of the racism she had faced when she first came to the UK. I felt I only knew one side of her, and reading them was my way of getting to know her after she died in 2009.’
After a mishap in front of her guesthouse at Chungking Mansions, the executors of the inheritance book Lily into the Peninsula. As she learns, the inheritance is from an old family friend named Hei-Fong, both a childhood friend of Sook-Yin’s brother, Chor-Kit, and an early love interest of Sook-Yin’s before she emigrated in the 1960s. Lily is determined to find out why Hei-Fong left Maya and her a million pounds to be split evenly. Her only living relative in Hong Kong is her Uncle Chor, a professor at Hong Kong University.
Book Summary
Even as we approached the 'denouement' I felt I knew what was going to happen not because the author had failed to conceal a surprise twist but because the events made sense according to the storyline and the evidence presented in the narrative.
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