![]() ![]() ![]() Any one of these things would be problem enough, but Jess’ world is shaken up even more when she begins hearing the voice of her estranged (and dead) maternal grandmother in her head. ![]() Jess is very much at loose ends-unemployed despite her degree from Harvard, deeply closeted (with a secret girlfriend back in the States), raised in America but now forced to return with her parents to her unfamiliar birthplace. The book’s protagonist is Jessamyn (Jess) Teoh, a Malaysian American recently returned with her immigrant family to George Town in Penang. What I know about Malaysia can, shamefully, pretty much fill a moderately-sized thimble, and so it’s one of the true joys of Black Water Sister that it gives the reader (me, anyway) a fantastical lens into a vibrant culture and the people, the families, and the beliefs that populate it. On the subject of fantasy with intriguing, “unusual” settings, I wanted to finish this month by raving about Zen Cho’s beautiful ghost story Black Water Sister (Ace, 2021, $17.00), steeped in contemporary Malaysian life and culture. ![]()
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