A man looks back on his past and finds new meaning to life. Tian, a middle-aged man, moves into an old flat that had once belonged to his late father, to live out the rest of his life. As he goes about his days, he starts to reminisce about his childhood in a kampong in Singapore in the 1950s, and his friendship with Heng Chong, a schoolmate. Growing up, making their own fun and mischief, the boys developed a close friendship that was tested by the sudden appearance of a stray dog in their kampong. As secrets abounded and lies crept into their lives, a spark of retaliation soon set off a chain of events that led inevitably to an unforeseen tragedy that threw a long dark shadow over Tian’s life. As he looks back to find the answers to the mystery that surrounded this tragedy, Tian gains a deeper understanding of his own past and the true nature of loss, regret, and redemption, and discovers new hope and a new life imbued with resilience, fortitude, and purpose.
Author
O Thiam Chin is the winner of the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 for his first novel, Now That It's Over, and his second novel, Fox Fire Girl, was shortlisted for the 2016 EBFP; both novels are published by Epigram Books. He is also the author of five collections of short fiction: Free-Falling Man (2006), Never Been Better (2009), Under The Sun (2010), The Rest Of Your Life and Everything That Comes With It (2011) and Love, Or Something Like Love (2013). Love, Or Something Like Love was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction, and Never Been Better and Under The Sun were included in the top ten fiction books in the POPULAR Readers’ Choice Awards in Malaysia. His short stories have appeared in Mānoa, World Literature Today, The International Literary Quarterly, Asia Literary Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Kyoto Journal, The Jakarta Post, The New Straits Times, Asiatic and Esquire (Singapore). His short fiction was also selected for the first two volumes of The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series. O was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, a recipient of the NAC Young Artist Award in 2012, and has been thrice longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He has appeared frequently at writers festivals in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
