And as a former Vancouverite, I also appreciated the book's run-down Pacific edge of the future setting." reviews. story about two Asian women -one a shapeshifter and the other obsessed with scent and her dead mother - who lived in very different times, but are somehow related. It is dream-like and yet feels intensely real. Salt Fish Girl: A Novel Lai, Larissa Published by Thomas Allen Publishers (2008) ISBN 10: 0887623824 ISBN 13: 9780887623820 New Softcover Quantity: 1 Seller: Ria Christie Collections (Uxbridge, United Kingdom) Rating Seller Rating: Book Description Condition: New. Larissa Lai's poetic and lucid writing style fits so well with the fantastical yet tactile tone of the book. Salt fish girl is also laden with loss, denial, forgetting and abandonment that is a common thread in an asian diasporic experience. At the same time, however, the circular setup of the novel, the watery motifs, and gendered violence situates the book within women's experiences. It is also a creative challenge to conventional discussions on immigration and geographic/cultural displacement by exposing the power dynamics in the process. Calling this an 'Asian book' or a 'woman's book' limits its scope and depth, a book that delves into memory, both personal and historical. a sci-fi, fantasy, critical social commentary, poetry, and product of the postmodern. In other words it was really great, even better than The Tiger Flu(2018) in my opinion, which I read last year and enjoyed immensely too. Rich with ancient Chinese mythology and cultural lore, this remarkable novel is about gender, love, honour, intrigue, and fighting against oppression.". Salt Fish Girlby Larissa Laiis a gooey treat of a book, full of nauseating smells, intoxicating feelings and so much juicy/murky/enticing fluid. Could Miranda be infected by the Dreaming Disease that makes the past leak into the present?įramed by a playful sense of magical realism, Salt Fish Girl reveals a futuristic Pacific Northwest where corporations govern cities, factory workers are cybernetically engineered, middle-class labour is a video game, and those who haven't sold out to commerce and other ills must fight the evil powers intent on controlling everything. Miranda is haunted by traces of her mother's glamourous cabaret career, the strange smell of durian fruit that lingers about her, and odd tokens reminiscient of Nu Wa. Told in the beguiling voice of a narrator who is fish, snake, girl, and woman - all of whom must struggle against adversity for survival - the novel is set alternately in nineteenth-century China and in a futuristic Pacific Northwest.Īt turns whimsical and wry, Salt Fish Girl intertwines the story of Nu Wa, the shape-shifter, and that of Miranda, a troubled young girl living in the walled city of Serendipity circa 2044. Salt Fish Girl is the mesmerizing tale of an ageless female character who shifts shape and form through time and place.
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