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Her Father's Daughter
At twenty-something, Alice is eager for the milestones of adulthood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree - but why? As she digs further into her father's story, Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery: of memories lost and found, of her own fears for the future, of history and how it echoes down the years. Set in Melbourne, China and Cambodia, Her Father's Daughter captures a father-daughter relationship in a moving and astonishingly powerful way.
252 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2011
42 people are currently reading
1168 people want to read
About the author
Alice Pung
39 books369 followersAlice was born in Footscray, Victoria, a month after her parents Kuan and Kien arrived in Australia. Alice’s father, Kuan - a survivor of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime - named her after Lewis Carroll’s character because after surviving the Killing Fields, he thought Australia was a Wonderland. Alice is the oldest of four - she has a brother, Alexander, and two sisters, Alison and Alina.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
December 17, 2012
Walking through Footscray on the weekend, I found myself looking at people and wondering what had happened in their past. I wondered how many of the people I walked past had lost family members to murder or starvation or an illness of the developing world. Footscray would have a higher concentration of people who carry these tragedies and hurts into their new lives. What made me think of this is the fact that the ‘Father’ of this story, a Cambodian man named Kuan, owns the local whitegoods store. I’ve shopped there often. I am even more likely to go there now.
This book operates at a number of levels. I came to it expecting it to be an ‘Australian’ version of ‘First They Killed My Father’. In fact I‘d resisted reading it because I thought I’d read enough of this genre and only picked it up because I wanted to read the latest in Asian-Australian writing.
Structurally it’s very interesting. Pung sets up alternating chapters, written in third person, exploring the perspective of ‘Daughter’ (Pung) and ‘Father’ (her father). The chapters explore her move away from home in her mid 20s and her quest for an independent life. Through this we experience the not uncommon tension of the second generation migrant in conflict with the values and expectations of the first generation. The use of the alternating viewpoints adds a moving layer to this conflict and, unusually, we are positioned to see events through Kuan’s eyes as well as the young woman. He is a very careful man, hyper-alert to the security of his children with a range of protective measures that include filing the sharp point off the knives in their kitchen and always sleeping with a light on. In the first section, the daughter pushes against the tight bounds of the family.
Pung then goes to Beijing on an Asialink residency wishing to explore the Chinese heritage that comes through her Cambodian father’s ancestry. This is a difficult time for her. In an interview, she said: “The trouble was that China was a culture she had never had. ''My father had raised us up to be Australian, so we wouldn't be seen as refugees,'' she says. ''And secondly, we had to have the proud cultural heritage of being Chinese. But he omitted a huge part: he was born in Cambodia - and China was a place he visited when he was 16. ''So I was a complete foreigner in China. I enjoyed being there but the irony was I was supposed to be inspired by China and I felt such alienation.'' “ (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainmen...)
Pung began writing about her fathers’ experiences in Pol Pot’s Cambodia when she was 19 but said she lacked the maturity to manage the subject matter and turned instead to autobiography. Her time in China provided opportunities for a different kind of conversation with her dad. ''My father used to call me up on Skype and because of my conversations with him I wrote a short piece, which is the last chapter of the book,'' she says. ''It's a story about a man preparing for bed and locking up his house and hiding the kitchen knives. I realised there was something in this that wasn't in any story I'd written in China.''
But that's not who my father is. He's not the sum of his bad experiences. He's a man who has managed to transcend that. The most important thing about this book was that he was able to love us in an extraordinary way.'' (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainmen...)
The middle section of the book focuses on Kuan’s experiences from 1975 (Year One) until he manages to escape Cambodia. The pile of horrific stories is like a pile of bodies, the narration is unemotional, sparse, almost without judgement. It’s hard to retain the enormity of events and behaviour but the prose is effective, sometimes even poetic in the face of atrocities. “When she began her second book, Pung at first thought she would use the same sassy first-person voice that had been so successful in Unpolished Gem. ''It didn't work,'' she says. ''You can't be so disrespectful of the terrible things that happened in Cambodia.''”
The latter part of the book returns to the Father/Daughter alternating chapters that elaborate further on Kuan’s time in Australia and on the relationship between father and daughter. This is a book about love and about how people who love each other work to truly see each other. In some ways the Skype imagery is a metaphor for the book – it is about two people looking at each other squarely, without relief or distraction, but with love and compassion (I’m pushing this metaphor a little – the book is very much Pung’s ‘imagined’ view of her father and his perspective).
Writer, Stephanie-Bowie Liew , noted “Pung’s interesting use of the third person allows us to relate not only to her, but also to her father, Kuan. Her friend and fellow writer Arnold Zable said at her Melbourne Writers Festival book launch, “If you step away from yourself, detach yourself and become the third person, you’re able to see yourself with greater honesty.” Pung’s writing is indeed searingly honest; we see her insecurities and flaws through not only her own self-deprecating observations, but also from her father’s point of view. It is through Pung’s use of third person that Kuan come to life — a character in his own right, telling stories about surviving the killing fields to go on to build a family and a new life in Australia.” (lipmag.com/arts/books-arts/lip-lit-he...)
She has really matured as a writer – everything about this book: the structure, the language, the balance of the horrific with the domestic, the ethics of writing a narrative that presumes understanding of another’s history – all these elements speak to a sophistication of judgement. It’s sometimes a wrestle being a daughter. As I get older I have more compassion for my father and see how his characteristics (good and bad) are mine as well. I have gratitude to him for his care and love. This is the place that to which Pung takes us; it’s a very fine read.
This book operates at a number of levels. I came to it expecting it to be an ‘Australian’ version of ‘First They Killed My Father’. In fact I‘d resisted reading it because I thought I’d read enough of this genre and only picked it up because I wanted to read the latest in Asian-Australian writing.
Structurally it’s very interesting. Pung sets up alternating chapters, written in third person, exploring the perspective of ‘Daughter’ (Pung) and ‘Father’ (her father). The chapters explore her move away from home in her mid 20s and her quest for an independent life. Through this we experience the not uncommon tension of the second generation migrant in conflict with the values and expectations of the first generation. The use of the alternating viewpoints adds a moving layer to this conflict and, unusually, we are positioned to see events through Kuan’s eyes as well as the young woman. He is a very careful man, hyper-alert to the security of his children with a range of protective measures that include filing the sharp point off the knives in their kitchen and always sleeping with a light on. In the first section, the daughter pushes against the tight bounds of the family.
Pung then goes to Beijing on an Asialink residency wishing to explore the Chinese heritage that comes through her Cambodian father’s ancestry. This is a difficult time for her. In an interview, she said: “The trouble was that China was a culture she had never had. ''My father had raised us up to be Australian, so we wouldn't be seen as refugees,'' she says. ''And secondly, we had to have the proud cultural heritage of being Chinese. But he omitted a huge part: he was born in Cambodia - and China was a place he visited when he was 16. ''So I was a complete foreigner in China. I enjoyed being there but the irony was I was supposed to be inspired by China and I felt such alienation.'' “ (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainmen...)
Pung began writing about her fathers’ experiences in Pol Pot’s Cambodia when she was 19 but said she lacked the maturity to manage the subject matter and turned instead to autobiography. Her time in China provided opportunities for a different kind of conversation with her dad. ''My father used to call me up on Skype and because of my conversations with him I wrote a short piece, which is the last chapter of the book,'' she says. ''It's a story about a man preparing for bed and locking up his house and hiding the kitchen knives. I realised there was something in this that wasn't in any story I'd written in China.''
But that's not who my father is. He's not the sum of his bad experiences. He's a man who has managed to transcend that. The most important thing about this book was that he was able to love us in an extraordinary way.'' (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainmen...)
The middle section of the book focuses on Kuan’s experiences from 1975 (Year One) until he manages to escape Cambodia. The pile of horrific stories is like a pile of bodies, the narration is unemotional, sparse, almost without judgement. It’s hard to retain the enormity of events and behaviour but the prose is effective, sometimes even poetic in the face of atrocities. “When she began her second book, Pung at first thought she would use the same sassy first-person voice that had been so successful in Unpolished Gem. ''It didn't work,'' she says. ''You can't be so disrespectful of the terrible things that happened in Cambodia.''”
The latter part of the book returns to the Father/Daughter alternating chapters that elaborate further on Kuan’s time in Australia and on the relationship between father and daughter. This is a book about love and about how people who love each other work to truly see each other. In some ways the Skype imagery is a metaphor for the book – it is about two people looking at each other squarely, without relief or distraction, but with love and compassion (I’m pushing this metaphor a little – the book is very much Pung’s ‘imagined’ view of her father and his perspective).
Writer, Stephanie-Bowie Liew , noted “Pung’s interesting use of the third person allows us to relate not only to her, but also to her father, Kuan. Her friend and fellow writer Arnold Zable said at her Melbourne Writers Festival book launch, “If you step away from yourself, detach yourself and become the third person, you’re able to see yourself with greater honesty.” Pung’s writing is indeed searingly honest; we see her insecurities and flaws through not only her own self-deprecating observations, but also from her father’s point of view. It is through Pung’s use of third person that Kuan come to life — a character in his own right, telling stories about surviving the killing fields to go on to build a family and a new life in Australia.” (lipmag.com/arts/books-arts/lip-lit-he...)
She has really matured as a writer – everything about this book: the structure, the language, the balance of the horrific with the domestic, the ethics of writing a narrative that presumes understanding of another’s history – all these elements speak to a sophistication of judgement. It’s sometimes a wrestle being a daughter. As I get older I have more compassion for my father and see how his characteristics (good and bad) are mine as well. I have gratitude to him for his care and love. This is the place that to which Pung takes us; it’s a very fine read.
October 12, 2022
"If you looked at darkness through rose-coloured glasses, all you got was a congealed blood colour. A colour that should have a specific name, like blug, a clotty mixture of mucus and blood."
"Good god, he thought, if he took his daughter back to Cambodia there would be no end to her slack-jawed awe. She’d even think it was a proud thing to have come from such a bloody history. She’d probably cry for days on end, wasting energy on emotions that were vicarious."
This is extraordinary non-fiction writing communicating something vital yet delicate to capture. I'm trying to resist calling it creative non-fiction because that somehow implies that this isn't 'true', which it is, and literary non-fiction implies a focus on the writing over the subject, which isn't true. So I'll just stick with "really good"
Pung has made choices that at first seem odd - the book is written in the third person, switching perspectives and using titles - "daughter" and "father" - to label the sections. She starts the book on her own solitary trip to China - no father, no Cambodia - and only wends her way around to the latter towards the end of the book.
But as the book progressed, I realised with the former that Pung intends the reader to recognise that they are reading a created work. This is especially needed because it is not only her story but her father's. Pung inserts a reflection, part way through the book, of her relief that her parents recognise that her first book is not their internal lives. No story gets told without choices, of content, of style, of voice. In creating her father's thoughts, she provides reflections on her own role as narrator of his story. This story isn't untrue, but it is packaged truth, and it is Pung's packaging.
We start the narrative with her because this is a book about being someone's daughter. And we need to start by understanding her life, and her relationship with her parents - to see them as she does (or chooses to reflect). They are painted as rounded people, with joys and idiosyncrasies, not simply a collection of overprotectiveness, although this is there as well.
By the time the book gets to the very difficult content, you know and love these people, you see them as human and rounded - perhaps with their funnier edges sharpened - but the trauma fleshes them out, it doesn't define them. It helps us to understand why her father can't stop his worries for her, why they lean overprotective, and why being surrounded by electronics might feel safe. It makes the hard stuff harder because these aren't cartoon characters. It helps to understand that this constitutes four years of their lives without minimising the reverberating impact.
All of this meant that this book, possibly partly because of the time I read it*, undid me. It felt for a while, at least, as if all my attempts to put one foot in front of the other had to be suspended to let myself deal with the emotion. Two images really stay with me - one is around a disturbing story involving kittens, which Pung gently visits and revisits. After we have read about the horrors of the killing fields, she brings us back to the kittens to understand both her parents' reactions to suffering and how it might feel to have that gulf between you and your parents. And the second, initially and always slightly played for laughs, is of a father trying to cut the tip of a knife with another knife, so his adult children do not face the smallest danger. To bring myself back, I had to remind myself this is ultimately a story about love and resilience, which manages never to make things neatly tied or to place them beyond interrogation.
*the second half was one long insomniac stretch, it was the day after some stressful long-term planning confronting realities of climate change and after two years of 'unprecedented')
"Good god, he thought, if he took his daughter back to Cambodia there would be no end to her slack-jawed awe. She’d even think it was a proud thing to have come from such a bloody history. She’d probably cry for days on end, wasting energy on emotions that were vicarious."
This is extraordinary non-fiction writing communicating something vital yet delicate to capture. I'm trying to resist calling it creative non-fiction because that somehow implies that this isn't 'true', which it is, and literary non-fiction implies a focus on the writing over the subject, which isn't true. So I'll just stick with "really good"
Pung has made choices that at first seem odd - the book is written in the third person, switching perspectives and using titles - "daughter" and "father" - to label the sections. She starts the book on her own solitary trip to China - no father, no Cambodia - and only wends her way around to the latter towards the end of the book.
But as the book progressed, I realised with the former that Pung intends the reader to recognise that they are reading a created work. This is especially needed because it is not only her story but her father's. Pung inserts a reflection, part way through the book, of her relief that her parents recognise that her first book is not their internal lives. No story gets told without choices, of content, of style, of voice. In creating her father's thoughts, she provides reflections on her own role as narrator of his story. This story isn't untrue, but it is packaged truth, and it is Pung's packaging.
We start the narrative with her because this is a book about being someone's daughter. And we need to start by understanding her life, and her relationship with her parents - to see them as she does (or chooses to reflect). They are painted as rounded people, with joys and idiosyncrasies, not simply a collection of overprotectiveness, although this is there as well.
By the time the book gets to the very difficult content, you know and love these people, you see them as human and rounded - perhaps with their funnier edges sharpened - but the trauma fleshes them out, it doesn't define them. It helps us to understand why her father can't stop his worries for her, why they lean overprotective, and why being surrounded by electronics might feel safe. It makes the hard stuff harder because these aren't cartoon characters. It helps to understand that this constitutes four years of their lives without minimising the reverberating impact.
All of this meant that this book, possibly partly because of the time I read it*, undid me. It felt for a while, at least, as if all my attempts to put one foot in front of the other had to be suspended to let myself deal with the emotion. Two images really stay with me - one is around a disturbing story involving kittens, which Pung gently visits and revisits. After we have read about the horrors of the killing fields, she brings us back to the kittens to understand both her parents' reactions to suffering and how it might feel to have that gulf between you and your parents. And the second, initially and always slightly played for laughs, is of a father trying to cut the tip of a knife with another knife, so his adult children do not face the smallest danger. To bring myself back, I had to remind myself this is ultimately a story about love and resilience, which manages never to make things neatly tied or to place them beyond interrogation.
*the second half was one long insomniac stretch, it was the day after some stressful long-term planning confronting realities of climate change and after two years of 'unprecedented')
May 27, 2018
Finished: 27.05.2018
Genre: memoir
Rating: C
Conclusion:
Alice is a 20-something who wants to live, learn and start her adult life in Australia.
Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree - but why?
Ms Pung takes the reader back to the harrowing
times tat her father survived in Cambodia.
Now we understand her father's wish to keep his daughter safe.
Just because a book is non-fiction doesn’t stop it from being a book.
There were still elements of style and flow that I had difficulty with.
This was just a different sort of memoir. (3rd person narrative)
Most importantly...you should always read a book and form your own opinion!
Genre: memoir
Rating: C
Conclusion:
Alice is a 20-something who wants to live, learn and start her adult life in Australia.
Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree - but why?
Ms Pung takes the reader back to the harrowing
times tat her father survived in Cambodia.
Now we understand her father's wish to keep his daughter safe.
Just because a book is non-fiction doesn’t stop it from being a book.
There were still elements of style and flow that I had difficulty with.
This was just a different sort of memoir. (3rd person narrative)
Most importantly...you should always read a book and form your own opinion!
June 6, 2024
This is the first of Alice Pung's novels I have read and I have to say I'm impressed. Pung's writing is almost like reading poetry. There is a rythm in her writing that is beautiful and impactful.
I really enjoyed reading this novel. I found how the way the book delved into her father's perspective as well as her own really smart, at times really funny, and also really emotional.
I had heard about the Cambodian genocide before reading this novel but I took away alot more understand after reading this book. It is mind boggling how some people can survive so much suffering while others in the world will never experience anything like it.
Her Father's Daughter is a beautiful book. I would highly recommend!
I really enjoyed reading this novel. I found how the way the book delved into her father's perspective as well as her own really smart, at times really funny, and also really emotional.
I had heard about the Cambodian genocide before reading this novel but I took away alot more understand after reading this book. It is mind boggling how some people can survive so much suffering while others in the world will never experience anything like it.
Her Father's Daughter is a beautiful book. I would highly recommend!
July 27, 2019
I wonder... her father's perspective, I wonder if that's what/how my father in law thinks too. My in laws and the author's parents were probably at the Thailand refugee camp at the same time. The only difference is, my mother in law couldn't hold it and her first child (my husband) is born there. Such horrific stories... I don't know how anyone could live through that when I had to skip a bit here and there.
A wonderful thoughtful book of a daughter spreading her wings; finding her way in a world her parents have tried very hard to protect her from. And just as wonderful, a father's thought as he watched over his daughter - a mixture of wonderment, anxiety and pride.
A wonderful thoughtful book of a daughter spreading her wings; finding her way in a world her parents have tried very hard to protect her from. And just as wonderful, a father's thought as he watched over his daughter - a mixture of wonderment, anxiety and pride.
August 20, 2015
The ending really wrapped this up nicely for me in the sense that I liked how it ended enough to rate this 4 out of 5. Truthfully, the beginning was the only most attractive part. When we got into the details about her father, I was less interested. Not because it's not interesting, but rather, on the whole, I have never been really interested in the 'before' stories of autobiographies. I'm more interested in memoirs and autobiographies about growing up in Australia. Hence why I really want to read Alice Pung's Unpolished Gem. I only picked up Her Father's Daughter because my supervisor at uni had checked out Unpolished Gem.
If it wasn't because of my research project, I suppose I would never consider venturing out into this genre, into this style of writing, and truthfully, I don't really want to. I read fiction for a reason--to get away from real stories. Contemporaries are close to real stories, but they are also 'just' fiction. Autobiographies and Memoirs though, they are completely and utterly in a different league, and sometimes, too real. So they make me uncomfortable. Reading Her Father's Daughter was one of those uncomfortable reads. One I enjoyed and also despised because it made me squirm in my seat. It took me a lot longer to finish this than I expected, and I had push my way through the last 120 pages, primarily because it was the memory of Alice's father's life before he came to Australia. And because I know all that I'm reading is based on a true story/is a true story, it just feels so odd. I really didn't feel like her father's parts were real--the side effect of being a second gen migrant/first gen aus-born, we live too privileged a life (something Alice also touches on in her memoir) to really understand. Even if we try, we don't. Hence why I struggled with the parts of her father's story. For some, this might be interesting, to see how Alice's parents fled, to see how they survived, but I couldn't. To me, it was like fiction--it was a whole other world for me, and if it were really fictional, I might have been able to enjoy it more, to feel the drama. But it is real, and it had happened, and there are thousands of others who had faced similar trials, so I couldn't really enjoy it as much. When it's true, people's faces become a frown, a grimace of discomfort. If it's fiction, there's desperation, awe, want for the story to end well. For memoir, there isn't really an ending beyond the ending given.
But it is still a piece of creative fiction. And I did read the whole thing through, and enjoy it to some degree. Alice's story is very interesting, and admittedly, I hate how much parts of her story is very relevant to me. Not to mention, I know the places she refers to--yes, I will fangirl and say I used to go to school where she grew up in Footscray! My highschool is there and Alice also did a speech at my school for her Unpolished Gem, and I loved it. She was so inspiring, and I definitely want to read her Unpolished Gem because of it. I'm kind of glad I decided to wait to read it to--I can imagine how my 16 year old self would have reacted.
Getting back to this book. This book is a story about Alice and her father. Interestingly, Alice sets up a contrast between her side of the story, and his. What I love a lot, is the way you see heritage and identity reflected in each individual. Alice is Australian-born, an asian-australian, brought up to be Australian so that she wouldn't be considered as a refugee. But in doing so, she has lost many of the values that links to culture because of her father's insistence on the way she was brought up. And you see how much she is missing based on the perspectives from her father. I love this contrast, because I can relate so much to how Alice feels when she's in China watching the young man bargain something for her, or when she's looking for a house to buy--her eyes are drawn to certain things, yet for her father, it's simple--price, quality, longevity. And this struggle was written out well, so very truthfully.
I was a bit astonished however, to find the story being told in alternating chapters. Not so surprised to see the book set out in three separate 'parts'. The jumping from one part to another was a bit jarring, but then again, it is the way autobiographies and memoirs are written I suppose--I did read one autobiography once for Literature which I found so utterly annoying to read, I hated it--and I actually think Alice Pung did a really good job in linking each part together. It was done much nicer than the other book I read, I think it's called 'Oranges' or something. (I, personally, don't want to think about that other book right now.) The first part tells of Alice's time in China, to visit the birthplace of her roots, where her grandparents are from. Since from the beginning of this book, we are told that her father never wants her to know about his time in Cambodia. The second part of Her Father's Daughter goes back to her father's story back in the 'Year One' in Cambodia. And then in the third part, it goes back to Alice and Father's alternating story, ending the book with Alice going with her father to Cambodia, and learning about the past. Giving, on the whole, a well rounded creative fiction about true facts.
Now. Writing. Alice's writing is lovely. She starts this book very strongly, and I absolutely love how she deconstructed her story with her writing. For example:
Here, Alice does something very clever with her work. She is differentiating her story from other stories, other postcolonial/'returnee'/immigrant stories. She is also realistic. And it's clear, right from the beginning of her arrival back in China, that it is hardly a dreamland. And I think, that's quite clever for Alice to do so with her writing. And all through the first section and the third section of this book, Alice Pung (Gosh, after reading her memoir, I feel like it's fine to call her 'Alice' even though I've never personally met her, and it feels way too odd! So I'm going to try and stay consistent, and call her either Alice Pung, or Pung throughout the rest of this story) does a wonderful job with her writing. It's straightforward, honest, and sometimes humourous. The only part that lagged, whether it was because of the writing, or because of my own obstinate discomfort of not knowing how to read a story based on true facts and treat it like fiction at the same time. But it lagged. Other than that though, Alice Pung's writing is lovely, and I would like to read more of it.
Overall, an interesting story was told here. Both enjoyable and also not--but of course, it depends on what kind of person you are, and where you come from. It depends on what you're interested in too. As for me, I've always been interested in stories about people growing up, exploring and negotiating identity. In Alice Pung's book, we have an insight into the life of an asian-australian, well written, well rounded, with a very interesting narrative.
I am a little biased, but because this is an Alice Pung book, I would suggest it as a suggestive read.
If it wasn't because of my research project, I suppose I would never consider venturing out into this genre, into this style of writing, and truthfully, I don't really want to. I read fiction for a reason--to get away from real stories. Contemporaries are close to real stories, but they are also 'just' fiction. Autobiographies and Memoirs though, they are completely and utterly in a different league, and sometimes, too real. So they make me uncomfortable. Reading Her Father's Daughter was one of those uncomfortable reads. One I enjoyed and also despised because it made me squirm in my seat. It took me a lot longer to finish this than I expected, and I had push my way through the last 120 pages, primarily because it was the memory of Alice's father's life before he came to Australia. And because I know all that I'm reading is based on a true story/is a true story, it just feels so odd. I really didn't feel like her father's parts were real--the side effect of being a second gen migrant/first gen aus-born, we live too privileged a life (something Alice also touches on in her memoir) to really understand. Even if we try, we don't. Hence why I struggled with the parts of her father's story. For some, this might be interesting, to see how Alice's parents fled, to see how they survived, but I couldn't. To me, it was like fiction--it was a whole other world for me, and if it were really fictional, I might have been able to enjoy it more, to feel the drama. But it is real, and it had happened, and there are thousands of others who had faced similar trials, so I couldn't really enjoy it as much. When it's true, people's faces become a frown, a grimace of discomfort. If it's fiction, there's desperation, awe, want for the story to end well. For memoir, there isn't really an ending beyond the ending given.
But it is still a piece of creative fiction. And I did read the whole thing through, and enjoy it to some degree. Alice's story is very interesting, and admittedly, I hate how much parts of her story is very relevant to me. Not to mention, I know the places she refers to--yes, I will fangirl and say I used to go to school where she grew up in Footscray! My highschool is there and Alice also did a speech at my school for her Unpolished Gem, and I loved it. She was so inspiring, and I definitely want to read her Unpolished Gem because of it. I'm kind of glad I decided to wait to read it to--I can imagine how my 16 year old self would have reacted.
Getting back to this book. This book is a story about Alice and her father. Interestingly, Alice sets up a contrast between her side of the story, and his. What I love a lot, is the way you see heritage and identity reflected in each individual. Alice is Australian-born, an asian-australian, brought up to be Australian so that she wouldn't be considered as a refugee. But in doing so, she has lost many of the values that links to culture because of her father's insistence on the way she was brought up. And you see how much she is missing based on the perspectives from her father. I love this contrast, because I can relate so much to how Alice feels when she's in China watching the young man bargain something for her, or when she's looking for a house to buy--her eyes are drawn to certain things, yet for her father, it's simple--price, quality, longevity. And this struggle was written out well, so very truthfully.
I was a bit astonished however, to find the story being told in alternating chapters. Not so surprised to see the book set out in three separate 'parts'. The jumping from one part to another was a bit jarring, but then again, it is the way autobiographies and memoirs are written I suppose--I did read one autobiography once for Literature which I found so utterly annoying to read, I hated it--and I actually think Alice Pung did a really good job in linking each part together. It was done much nicer than the other book I read, I think it's called 'Oranges' or something. (I, personally, don't want to think about that other book right now.) The first part tells of Alice's time in China, to visit the birthplace of her roots, where her grandparents are from. Since from the beginning of this book, we are told that her father never wants her to know about his time in Cambodia. The second part of Her Father's Daughter goes back to her father's story back in the 'Year One' in Cambodia. And then in the third part, it goes back to Alice and Father's alternating story, ending the book with Alice going with her father to Cambodia, and learning about the past. Giving, on the whole, a well rounded creative fiction about true facts.
Now. Writing. Alice's writing is lovely. She starts this book very strongly, and I absolutely love how she deconstructed her story with her writing. For example:
Still she preseveres:
This story begins on a bus. The bus rolls down dirt roads, and when it stops, she will disembark and scoop up soil and kiss the land of her ancestors and tell the world how good it is to be home at last.
The reader is not there with her; she can say whatever she likes. But the ground, as she can see, is salted with spit and dotted with dog-shit, and it is not even soil. It's just dust. P.11
Here, Alice does something very clever with her work. She is differentiating her story from other stories, other postcolonial/'returnee'/immigrant stories. She is also realistic. And it's clear, right from the beginning of her arrival back in China, that it is hardly a dreamland. And I think, that's quite clever for Alice to do so with her writing. And all through the first section and the third section of this book, Alice Pung (Gosh, after reading her memoir, I feel like it's fine to call her 'Alice' even though I've never personally met her, and it feels way too odd! So I'm going to try and stay consistent, and call her either Alice Pung, or Pung throughout the rest of this story) does a wonderful job with her writing. It's straightforward, honest, and sometimes humourous. The only part that lagged, whether it was because of the writing, or because of my own obstinate discomfort of not knowing how to read a story based on true facts and treat it like fiction at the same time. But it lagged. Other than that though, Alice Pung's writing is lovely, and I would like to read more of it.
Overall, an interesting story was told here. Both enjoyable and also not--but of course, it depends on what kind of person you are, and where you come from. It depends on what you're interested in too. As for me, I've always been interested in stories about people growing up, exploring and negotiating identity. In Alice Pung's book, we have an insight into the life of an asian-australian, well written, well rounded, with a very interesting narrative.
I am a little biased, but because this is an Alice Pung book, I would suggest it as a suggestive read.
December 13, 2022
An interesting memoir. Alice Ping’s parents are Cambodian her grandparents are Chinese. This book focuses on her father’s traumatic experiences during the 1970s, when Cambodian leader, Pol Pot, killed many Cambodians and disturbed Cambodian society by having rural workers move to the cities and intellectuals murdered. She highlights his actions as a father in Australia where influenced by his life in Cambodia.
A worthwhile read about an immigrant’s life, settling in Australia.
This book was first published in 2011.
A worthwhile read about an immigrant’s life, settling in Australia.
This book was first published in 2011.
June 24, 2019
sweet & sad, made me cry in a nice way i think
August 10, 2016
Recently I heard Alice Pung speak and on a whim this week, I decided to buy this book after putting it off for three years. I'm not sure why I didn't read it sooner.
This isn't a refugee story by any means, but an incredibly moving story of Alice and her growing want for independence, and her overprotective father, whose paranoias for his family's safety are motivated by love, and fear. And with love as your primary reason, that is an argument a daughter can never win.
Through her and her father's perspective, Alice's voice compels you into her and her father's head. Set in China, Melbourne and Cambodia, Alice shows how her parents' love and worries shape each decision she makes, and how she slowly came to understand her father's oddities (investing in ramshackle properties, hiding knives every night) and the four years of his life during Pol Pot that he had deliberately tried to forget.
Beautiful prose, highly recommended reading. (though might be more interesting if you read her book Unpolished Gem first)
This isn't a refugee story by any means, but an incredibly moving story of Alice and her growing want for independence, and her overprotective father, whose paranoias for his family's safety are motivated by love, and fear. And with love as your primary reason, that is an argument a daughter can never win.
Through her and her father's perspective, Alice's voice compels you into her and her father's head. Set in China, Melbourne and Cambodia, Alice shows how her parents' love and worries shape each decision she makes, and how she slowly came to understand her father's oddities (investing in ramshackle properties, hiding knives every night) and the four years of his life during Pol Pot that he had deliberately tried to forget.
Beautiful prose, highly recommended reading. (though might be more interesting if you read her book Unpolished Gem first)
March 6, 2016
I hade expected this to pick up where Unpolished Gem finished, but it is very different in style, and is much more about the relationship between father and daughter (including how the father's past affects that relationship) than a straightforward memoir. I initially found the third person writing style hard to get into, and it made the book read more like fiction, but on reflection I think this demonstrated how Pung herself came to understand her relationship with her father almost as an outside observer.
The narrative can best be described as a series of interrelated vignettes, and some part of the book work better than others. I found the Year Zero section particularly compelling. While other sections didn't work so well for me, I was left with a clear sense of the love and affection within Pung's family, in spite of the horrors in her father's past.
The narrative can best be described as a series of interrelated vignettes, and some part of the book work better than others. I found the Year Zero section particularly compelling. While other sections didn't work so well for me, I was left with a clear sense of the love and affection within Pung's family, in spite of the horrors in her father's past.
June 20, 2016
I really adored Alice Pung’s second memoir,as well as I did the first. In some ways this one is a more flawed book because of the gaps the story leaves in emotional experiences of Alice and also the distance it creates between her and her readers because she chose to write this memoir in the third person. But I love the ambition and artistry of this book, I love how the structure is not linear but emotional, how boldly and artfully Pung approaches the writing of horrors of Pot Pol and of course, just like Unpolished Gem, this memoir sings with poetry. I am a big fan.
December 5, 2017
It's the kind of book that makes you feel grateful for your life, no matter how bad it seems at the moment. And as an Indonesian of Chinese descent, I relate to a lot of her stories, as my parents are somewhat like Alice's parents as well.
The first few chapters were a bit slow, and I didn't quite like the changing voices at first, but it really picked up when she talked about Cambodia. Now I understand why the first few chapters were written like that—it was all part of the backstory.
Love the book.
The first few chapters were a bit slow, and I didn't quite like the changing voices at first, but it really picked up when she talked about Cambodia. Now I understand why the first few chapters were written like that—it was all part of the backstory.
Love the book.
July 27, 2023
This was such an excellent memoir. It’s told in a third person pov, and the perspective alternates between the author and her father. To me this reads like a cross between raw, spare, intimate and sharp literary fiction, and the epic, gut wrenching truth of some historical fiction novels. Highly recommended.
CW horrific conditions/ experiences living under the control of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Also animal neglect and death.
CW horrific conditions/ experiences living under the control of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Also animal neglect and death.
March 23, 2025
A story of love and courage and hope. I was really touched by the relationship and understanding between father and daughter.
November 23, 2017
A beautiful memoir about history, love and the unbridgeable gaps between children and parents in first generation migrant families. The middle section in Cambodia is harrowing and I found myself stopping to digest so much of it. The parts set in Australia are so familiar to me.
December 22, 2025
I really enjoyed parts of this book, but the pacing was odd and a bit confusing. It was hard to read about Alice’s father’s experience under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia but it was also very interesting.
September 21, 2023
Long review bc I adored the book:
I read this on various buses and planes whilst on a family holiday to Vietnam. Being Australian-born Vietnamese and travelling in the country, whilst learning more about the culture/slang amplified certain aspects abt the book for me. Eg Pung mentions how her aunts say ‘si oh’ or ‘go die’ to express exasperation which is similar to Vietnamese - ‘Chet may.’ Specifically being a child of immigrants who were hesitant for her to move interstate because they are constantly worried about her safety - a very similar experience to my family. I learned so much about the Cambodian genocide and the atrocities wrought upon the Cambodian people, especially intellectuals or those of undesirable ethnicities according to the Black Bandits. She is an incredible writer, and the imagery in her prose is horrifyingly descriptive and engrossing. The description of Operation Menu especially stood out; where the American military carried out unapproved bombings on Cambodian land, and Pung writes of burnt human skin being akin to bacon at breakfast. The fact that this is a memoir, retelling the experiences of her father during the genocide, makes it far more engaging than just a Wikipedia article. This speaks to the importance of storytelling in sharing information and building empathy for experiences unlike our own.
Extra little points I loved:
- And [her father] looked at his store and saw it was good - biblical allusion to God looking down at the world he had created
- The phrase ‘self myopia of adolescence’
- Describing drowsiness as ‘sopoforic defiance’
-Imagery of a ‘seaside resort sprawled like a beautiful blinged up woman across to the beach. He wanted to lose himself in those generous sandy arms’ rather than face the harsh reality that in ‘the middle of the killing fields, with nothing, you only had your own body.’
- Description that ‘the size of a cup is the measure of a society’s loqauiceness ‘
I read this on various buses and planes whilst on a family holiday to Vietnam. Being Australian-born Vietnamese and travelling in the country, whilst learning more about the culture/slang amplified certain aspects abt the book for me. Eg Pung mentions how her aunts say ‘si oh’ or ‘go die’ to express exasperation which is similar to Vietnamese - ‘Chet may.’ Specifically being a child of immigrants who were hesitant for her to move interstate because they are constantly worried about her safety - a very similar experience to my family. I learned so much about the Cambodian genocide and the atrocities wrought upon the Cambodian people, especially intellectuals or those of undesirable ethnicities according to the Black Bandits. She is an incredible writer, and the imagery in her prose is horrifyingly descriptive and engrossing. The description of Operation Menu especially stood out; where the American military carried out unapproved bombings on Cambodian land, and Pung writes of burnt human skin being akin to bacon at breakfast. The fact that this is a memoir, retelling the experiences of her father during the genocide, makes it far more engaging than just a Wikipedia article. This speaks to the importance of storytelling in sharing information and building empathy for experiences unlike our own.
Extra little points I loved:
- And [her father] looked at his store and saw it was good - biblical allusion to God looking down at the world he had created
- The phrase ‘self myopia of adolescence’
- Describing drowsiness as ‘sopoforic defiance’
-Imagery of a ‘seaside resort sprawled like a beautiful blinged up woman across to the beach. He wanted to lose himself in those generous sandy arms’ rather than face the harsh reality that in ‘the middle of the killing fields, with nothing, you only had your own body.’
- Description that ‘the size of a cup is the measure of a society’s loqauiceness ‘
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2016
A beautiful and haunting look at family and the differences between generations. This is a story of the love that binds families, and how we can love our parents but not really understand them, unless we decided to know their story. This is all about those funny and annoying and frustrating things that your parents do, and how it takes courage to really look into why they are that way, and to accept it for what it is. This is about loving people as they are and understanding how much they love you. It is also deeply disturbing and hard to read because of the section on the killing fields in Cambodia. The story of Pol Pot and how Cambodia affected Alice's father is one that her father did not want to her to know. He wanted her to grow up Australian, to grow up with all the things he never had and to never need to know why he wanted to live in a land of electricity, cleanliness and education.
I can understand why it took 10 years to write this story. It would have been very difficult to relive what her father and mother and family went through in Cambodia, and to put it on paper in a way that shows courage, love and determination. It would have taken time and understanding to be able to process this all, not be distracted by it and to come to the other side, a better person for the journey.
I really enjoyed the ending, it made me smile.
I can understand why it took 10 years to write this story. It would have been very difficult to relive what her father and mother and family went through in Cambodia, and to put it on paper in a way that shows courage, love and determination. It would have taken time and understanding to be able to process this all, not be distracted by it and to come to the other side, a better person for the journey.
I really enjoyed the ending, it made me smile.
December 24, 2012
I read Alice's memoir Unpolished Gem when it was published a few years ago and loved it. When I saw she had a second book out it instantly moved onto my must read list.
With this new memoir Pung is exploring her father's life in the killing fields of Cambodia and how this has shaped his over-cautious nature and influenced his children's life.
The memoir is written in third person and shifts between the two points of view of father and daughter. Pung has a beautifully lyrical style, but the real revelation was the way she was able to capture the brutality that her father lived through with a delicate hand. There is a scene where she visits the field where her father buried the dead. She reflects on the fragility of the human body and what happens when a body starves to death. She doesn't attempt to recreate the scenes her father lived through, and yet through this reflective process she makes the reader so aware of the brutality of the regime he survived.
With this new memoir Pung is exploring her father's life in the killing fields of Cambodia and how this has shaped his over-cautious nature and influenced his children's life.
The memoir is written in third person and shifts between the two points of view of father and daughter. Pung has a beautifully lyrical style, but the real revelation was the way she was able to capture the brutality that her father lived through with a delicate hand. There is a scene where she visits the field where her father buried the dead. She reflects on the fragility of the human body and what happens when a body starves to death. She doesn't attempt to recreate the scenes her father lived through, and yet through this reflective process she makes the reader so aware of the brutality of the regime he survived.
November 20, 2012
This is a beautifully written memoir by Alice Pung about her father, herself and her family; their life in Australia, her father's four years of horror living under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and his years of 'dismemory'. Having spent a month in Cambodia in 2004, seeing the devastation of the Pol Pot years on the country and its people made me particularly keen to read this book. It was interesting the way Alice Pung chose to write her story in the third person. A bit disconcerting in the beginning but was the perfect way to tell this poignant story. Her quote towards the end of the book from TS Eliot: "There's no vocabularly for love within a family, loved that's lived in, but not looked at, love within the sight of which, all else is seen, the love within which all other love finds speech. This love is silent", perfectly evokes the love within the Pung family.
September 21, 2011
Last night I heard Alice Pung speak at Avid Reader in Brisbane, and she really brought this book to life, as she talked about her parents, her upbringing and relationship with her mother and father and their lives in China, Cambodia and Melbourne.
Her Fathers Daughter is written in the third person and almost as a conversation between Alice and her father and it capture's their relationship in a very moving way.
Alice's father fled Cambodia to Vietnam in 1979, narrowly escaping death in the Killing Fields. However, the book isn't just about the stories of the horrific Pol Pot regime, and in fact it doesn't go there until p 114. Her Father's Daughter is ultimately a book about love and respect and a celebration of life after Cambodia.
Her Fathers Daughter is written in the third person and almost as a conversation between Alice and her father and it capture's their relationship in a very moving way.
Alice's father fled Cambodia to Vietnam in 1979, narrowly escaping death in the Killing Fields. However, the book isn't just about the stories of the horrific Pol Pot regime, and in fact it doesn't go there until p 114. Her Father's Daughter is ultimately a book about love and respect and a celebration of life after Cambodia.
December 11, 2016
Her Father's Daughter is a really quite fascinating account of Alice Pung's relationship with her father, as well as his suffering in Cambodia. The contrast between Pung's relatively sheltered life (while dealing with her parents' concerns) and the horrors of Cambodia is quite striking. I found it very effecting, though I would like to explore the book's themes further than one reading on a lengthy aeroplane flight can provide.
These thoughts aren't very coherent now, but I have to study the book for lit, so it's likely that sometime next year a very comprehensive review will appear out of nowhere.
These thoughts aren't very coherent now, but I have to study the book for lit, so it's likely that sometime next year a very comprehensive review will appear out of nowhere.
January 23, 2012
Brings the refugee experience alive and relates it to the more recent Australian experience. I've read lots about Cambodia, but it always seems far away and happening to other people. Alice's book bought home the reality that this happened to real people - people I've met.
It's very different from her first book. The humour is still there, but not quite as obvious and on the surface. There is a lot more angst and anguish in this one.
Really looking forward to what Alice does next....
It's very different from her first book. The humour is still there, but not quite as obvious and on the surface. There is a lot more angst and anguish in this one.
Really looking forward to what Alice does next....
December 31, 2015
I'm not sure why Alice wrote this in the third person, but her story of trying to connect to her past, of hearing the hardships she unravels, and the quiet but determined ambition of her father, is something so many first generation Australians can relate to with ease.
guest-or-crosspost-review-anzllblog
September 25, 2012Karen Lee Thompson has written a terrific review of Alice Pung's latest memoir, see http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
November 30, 2012
A remarkable memoir, it's hauntingly beautiful and the events will definitely shake you up.
April 29, 2025
Alice Pung’s Her Father’s Daughter is a powerful and deeply moving memoir, remarkable not only for the story it tells but also for how it tells it — in the third person, giving the reader a sense of both intimacy and distance, as though observing Alice’s life unfold from the outside in.
Growing up in suburban Australia within a Cambodian migrant family, Alice is caught in the delicate tension between filial duty and the desire for independence. Her parents, particularly her father, are the embodiment of enmeshed parenting — setting her up on dates, buying property to secure her financial future, and struggling to understand why she would want anything beyond stability and safety. It’s a dynamic that will resonate with many children of migrants, especially those negotiating life between cultures.
But it’s not until Pung shifts the narrative back to her father’s childhood in Cambodia that the depth of his fears — and his need to protect her from the world — truly becomes clear. These chapters are harrowing. As someone who knew little about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields before reading this book, I was shocked by the extent of the atrocities. The brutality of those years, and the scars they left, are laid bare with unflinching honesty. These sections are not easy reading, but they are essential — reminding us of the profound trauma many refugees carry with them.
Ultimately, Her Father’s Daughter is more than a personal memoir; it’s a reminder that every migrant family has a story, and that these stories are now part of the fabric of Australia. Pung invites us to reflect on how the past shapes the present, and how trauma, love, and culture can collide in complex and tender ways. I finished this book with a deeper appreciation for the resilience of migrant families and a renewed hope that Australia remains a country with the generosity of heart to welcome those who seek refuge on our shores.
Thanks to Libraries ACT for lending me an audio version of this book.
Growing up in suburban Australia within a Cambodian migrant family, Alice is caught in the delicate tension between filial duty and the desire for independence. Her parents, particularly her father, are the embodiment of enmeshed parenting — setting her up on dates, buying property to secure her financial future, and struggling to understand why she would want anything beyond stability and safety. It’s a dynamic that will resonate with many children of migrants, especially those negotiating life between cultures.
But it’s not until Pung shifts the narrative back to her father’s childhood in Cambodia that the depth of his fears — and his need to protect her from the world — truly becomes clear. These chapters are harrowing. As someone who knew little about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields before reading this book, I was shocked by the extent of the atrocities. The brutality of those years, and the scars they left, are laid bare with unflinching honesty. These sections are not easy reading, but they are essential — reminding us of the profound trauma many refugees carry with them.
Ultimately, Her Father’s Daughter is more than a personal memoir; it’s a reminder that every migrant family has a story, and that these stories are now part of the fabric of Australia. Pung invites us to reflect on how the past shapes the present, and how trauma, love, and culture can collide in complex and tender ways. I finished this book with a deeper appreciation for the resilience of migrant families and a renewed hope that Australia remains a country with the generosity of heart to welcome those who seek refuge on our shores.
Thanks to Libraries ACT for lending me an audio version of this book.
Read
July 2, 2019Interesting read with a different style to Unpolished gem. Told from perspective of father and daughter, backwards and forwards between the two, both in third person, though it is clearly Alice herself writing about how she saw things. At one point she writes about showing her father the story and how he ‘only corrected factual errors’. A section in the middle covers his experiences in Cambodia following year zero without the comparison with Alice’s perspective. When later asked to comment on the writing he asks if people will want to read about such suffering.
Favourite line from earlier in the story when Alice is tutoring at Uni: ‘If Blake could see heaven in a flower why couldn’t these students see gloabalisation in the toy in their Happy Meals ...’
Excerpt from later in the book:
‘And when she and her brother came home from school speaking English, her father knew it was time. He wanted to whitewash their history so they could begin anew. No prying ways, no crap on scraps of paper lying around the house. Her father had named her Alice because he believed this new country to be a Wonderland, where anything was possible if she only went along with his unfailing belief. His patriotism rang truer and more annoying than any bogan supremacist’s. ‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.’ This to him was the most beautiful national anthem in the world. There *was* golden soil and wealth for toil. Who wanted to be anywhere else? In other countries, where their anthems were all about rinsing the land in the blood of the brothers?’
The end of the book emphasises the love that underpins the family, even while children and parents have such different views of the world and do not easily understand the others’ experiences.
Favourite line from earlier in the story when Alice is tutoring at Uni: ‘If Blake could see heaven in a flower why couldn’t these students see gloabalisation in the toy in their Happy Meals ...’
Excerpt from later in the book:
‘And when she and her brother came home from school speaking English, her father knew it was time. He wanted to whitewash their history so they could begin anew. No prying ways, no crap on scraps of paper lying around the house. Her father had named her Alice because he believed this new country to be a Wonderland, where anything was possible if she only went along with his unfailing belief. His patriotism rang truer and more annoying than any bogan supremacist’s. ‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.’ This to him was the most beautiful national anthem in the world. There *was* golden soil and wealth for toil. Who wanted to be anywhere else? In other countries, where their anthems were all about rinsing the land in the blood of the brothers?’
The end of the book emphasises the love that underpins the family, even while children and parents have such different views of the world and do not easily understand the others’ experiences.
December 20, 2025
A memoir of Australia, Cambodia and the writer’s father, Kuan, explaining why he is the way he is. Alice Pung writes with clarity, wisdom and insight on the tensions and complex love between father and daughter.
Often traumatic, violent, and deeply sad. Beautifully written. A good example of the third person close point of view and use of free indirect speech.
A fear of plastic bags, the need to know where your kids are, the hard work building an electrical appliance business. The details are specific, unflinching, lyrical, and the imagery awful, beautiful and vivid, despite the suffering and trauma.
The first part set in Melbourne is familiar, peaceful and not unusual, dealing with a migrant father’s anxieties for his daughter, and the daughter’s frustrations and growing need for independence. The book shifts to Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the harrowing experience of the writer’s father surviving the Pol Pot regime.
There is so much in this book on cultural identity, what Australia means to migrants and refugees, and survival. And above all on love:
“Love was a verb with a certain amount of energy attached to it - a daily quota - and you had to choose on whom you wanted to spend this energy. That was love. That was why people had to pray for it. If it were not finite, no one would pine for love in their lives - they would just wait to receive or learn to give.”
“The real miracle in this, she realised as she watched him standing there in the heat holding a straw hat to his head, was not that he had lived. The real miracle was that he could love.”
Often traumatic, violent, and deeply sad. Beautifully written. A good example of the third person close point of view and use of free indirect speech.
A fear of plastic bags, the need to know where your kids are, the hard work building an electrical appliance business. The details are specific, unflinching, lyrical, and the imagery awful, beautiful and vivid, despite the suffering and trauma.
The first part set in Melbourne is familiar, peaceful and not unusual, dealing with a migrant father’s anxieties for his daughter, and the daughter’s frustrations and growing need for independence. The book shifts to Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the harrowing experience of the writer’s father surviving the Pol Pot regime.
There is so much in this book on cultural identity, what Australia means to migrants and refugees, and survival. And above all on love:
“Love was a verb with a certain amount of energy attached to it - a daily quota - and you had to choose on whom you wanted to spend this energy. That was love. That was why people had to pray for it. If it were not finite, no one would pine for love in their lives - they would just wait to receive or learn to give.”
“The real miracle in this, she realised as she watched him standing there in the heat holding a straw hat to his head, was not that he had lived. The real miracle was that he could love.”
September 7, 2019
Alice writes beautifully. In this book she tells her story in the third person, and it is also the story of her parents, particularly her father (of Chinese Cambodian background). As a young adult, Alice tries to understand her parents controlling ways. In the telling of her father’s story, there is some pretty gritty, depressing and sad stories about the killing fields of Cambodia and the cruelty suffered not just by her father, but by others, as witnessed by him. As I read, I ask “how can people be so unkind, so cruel?” She comes to the conclusion that her parents desire for control, concern for her safety and future came about because of the dangers they faced in their earlier life. I am not sure if this is entirely the reason for their over protectiveness, only because I’ve met plenty of Asian families who did not face such fear or danger who have similar traits. Maybe her parents ways are cultural traits?
My sadness for the father in this story was quite profound - not because of what he experienced under Pol Pot, but for the level of anxiety he lives under now. I can’t imagine living my life consumed by worry on a daily basis in a time and place where it is not necessary. Being concerned about the intricate details of a life that isn’t yours. Not coping when things are different than he wants. Jumping to conclusions (if you participate in the 40 hour famine you will permanently damage your stomach) just so he has something to worry about. It must be exhausting.
Some of the stories Alice about shared about the family quirks were quite funny (and realistic), reminding me of people I know.
Overall the message of love the family has for one another is clear. this was worth reading, I listened on audio book - a 6-7 hour read
My sadness for the father in this story was quite profound - not because of what he experienced under Pol Pot, but for the level of anxiety he lives under now. I can’t imagine living my life consumed by worry on a daily basis in a time and place where it is not necessary. Being concerned about the intricate details of a life that isn’t yours. Not coping when things are different than he wants. Jumping to conclusions (if you participate in the 40 hour famine you will permanently damage your stomach) just so he has something to worry about. It must be exhausting.
Some of the stories Alice about shared about the family quirks were quite funny (and realistic), reminding me of people I know.
Overall the message of love the family has for one another is clear. this was worth reading, I listened on audio book - a 6-7 hour read
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