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Singapore
‘SINGAPORE is a compelling and disturbing story about privilege, intrusive thoughts, and greyhounds.’ Emily Austin, author of Oh Honey and Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Bored and lonely, with hounds for company, she starts thinking about how it would feel to kill…
When she finds herself a ‘trailing spouse’, a woman attempts to make sense of a world that is both familiar and utterly different. Cooking, shopping, yoga, and the beauty a mundane routine that alienates her from who thought she was. Her only comforts are the dogs, but even they have lost their lust for the chase in the ever-oppressive heat. Discomfort turns into exciting fantasies of violence.
Singapore builds towards grotesque scenes, where the boundaries of a woman who always thought she had a conscience are blurred and broken, and the amorality of animals is increasingly her own.
Bored and lonely, with hounds for company, she starts thinking about how it would feel to kill…
When she finds herself a ‘trailing spouse’, a woman attempts to make sense of a world that is both familiar and utterly different. Cooking, shopping, yoga, and the beauty a mundane routine that alienates her from who thought she was. Her only comforts are the dogs, but even they have lost their lust for the chase in the ever-oppressive heat. Discomfort turns into exciting fantasies of violence.
Singapore builds towards grotesque scenes, where the boundaries of a woman who always thought she had a conscience are blurred and broken, and the amorality of animals is increasingly her own.
199 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 2, 2023
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27 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 19, 2023
Eva Aldea : Singapore
Just finished reading this morning, Eva Aldea’s ‘Singapore’ feels way too accomplished to be a debut novel, but that’s exactly what it is. And it’s a stunning achievement.
I’m not going to say too much about the plot, as you can find that out for yourselves, because you definitely should read it. But our main protagonist is relocated from London to Singapore with her husband’s job, and we see her attempting to adapt to life in the new country, new house, new routine, and with her two Greyhounds figuring out where she fits into it all… or rather losing herself in it all.
But it’s about so much more than that, and there are certainly some surprises in store.
Aldea’s prose is wonderful. It’s descriptive, yet removed, insightful and yet cold. At times it felt like looking at the characters lives through the depths of impenetrable water. It’s a deliciously dark, strange and weird book, with real macabre and violent moments. Like Virginia Woolf has wandered onto the set of Boon Joon Ho’s ‘Parasite’, with a touch of ‘American Psycho’ thrown in for good measure.
It’s a relatively short book at 172pp, but its pace and prose demanded that I take it slowly, carefully and thoughtfully. A great read, and I certainly recommend it.
Just finished reading this morning, Eva Aldea’s ‘Singapore’ feels way too accomplished to be a debut novel, but that’s exactly what it is. And it’s a stunning achievement.
I’m not going to say too much about the plot, as you can find that out for yourselves, because you definitely should read it. But our main protagonist is relocated from London to Singapore with her husband’s job, and we see her attempting to adapt to life in the new country, new house, new routine, and with her two Greyhounds figuring out where she fits into it all… or rather losing herself in it all.
But it’s about so much more than that, and there are certainly some surprises in store.
Aldea’s prose is wonderful. It’s descriptive, yet removed, insightful and yet cold. At times it felt like looking at the characters lives through the depths of impenetrable water. It’s a deliciously dark, strange and weird book, with real macabre and violent moments. Like Virginia Woolf has wandered onto the set of Boon Joon Ho’s ‘Parasite’, with a touch of ‘American Psycho’ thrown in for good measure.
It’s a relatively short book at 172pp, but its pace and prose demanded that I take it slowly, carefully and thoughtfully. A great read, and I certainly recommend it.
September 26, 2023
Eva Aldea’s debut novel is just about as accomplished a book as you could hope for first time out. The prose is immaculate, the pacing and atmosphere perfectly judged.
Our nameless protagonist is an academic moving to Singapore for her husband’s work. Unable, or perhaps ill-motivated, to find her own employment, She joins the ranks of ex-pat wives, filling their days with yoga, shopping and complaining about the help.
Unwilling to take on a maid and ill-suited to a life of idleness, She finds herself adrift. Unable to acclimatise herself to either the heat or the lifestyle, She becomes more and more detached until her mind starts first to wander and then to turn murderous.
The keeping the protagonist anonymous is a masterstroke, it underlines perfectly the sense that She is losing her sense of self, her identity. The drift into savagery is easily imagined as She becomes so cut off from the world around her, so introspective. Nothing feels real, and so the idea of murder seems to lose any sense of horror. In a meaningless world, there is no moral line to cross. It feels as natural as it does chilling to watch this woman lose all sense of reality in this strange, alien land where the unrelenting heat and humidity governs everything.
The prose style is, in direct contrast to the palpable heat, very cold, analytic. There’s no sensationalism, very little emotion expressed at all. Dialogue is kept to a minimum and scenes are given exhaustive description, again fitting for a story where the point is the removal of virtually all regular social contact. She is a watcher, an observer, the few conversations she has detached and sporadic. Every word is chosen, every sentence constructed, to make us aware of the way she is cut off from her world, as if watching it through thick glass. We’re told virtually nothing about her inner emotional life, but the trick is in making us understand it by making us experience it for ourselves. We are, in essence, as detached and removed from her as She is from those around her and that is our way in to the story. It’s a phenomenal trick to pull off, an audacious one to even attempt, and yet Aldea manages it effortlessly.
It’s tempting to reduce the book to a simple elevator pitch, it’s Lost in Translation meets American Psycho, but to do so always feels slightly cheap. Let us say instead, then, that is a formidable debut novel from an author it would pay to watch out for.
Our nameless protagonist is an academic moving to Singapore for her husband’s work. Unable, or perhaps ill-motivated, to find her own employment, She joins the ranks of ex-pat wives, filling their days with yoga, shopping and complaining about the help.
Unwilling to take on a maid and ill-suited to a life of idleness, She finds herself adrift. Unable to acclimatise herself to either the heat or the lifestyle, She becomes more and more detached until her mind starts first to wander and then to turn murderous.
The keeping the protagonist anonymous is a masterstroke, it underlines perfectly the sense that She is losing her sense of self, her identity. The drift into savagery is easily imagined as She becomes so cut off from the world around her, so introspective. Nothing feels real, and so the idea of murder seems to lose any sense of horror. In a meaningless world, there is no moral line to cross. It feels as natural as it does chilling to watch this woman lose all sense of reality in this strange, alien land where the unrelenting heat and humidity governs everything.
The prose style is, in direct contrast to the palpable heat, very cold, analytic. There’s no sensationalism, very little emotion expressed at all. Dialogue is kept to a minimum and scenes are given exhaustive description, again fitting for a story where the point is the removal of virtually all regular social contact. She is a watcher, an observer, the few conversations she has detached and sporadic. Every word is chosen, every sentence constructed, to make us aware of the way she is cut off from her world, as if watching it through thick glass. We’re told virtually nothing about her inner emotional life, but the trick is in making us understand it by making us experience it for ourselves. We are, in essence, as detached and removed from her as She is from those around her and that is our way in to the story. It’s a phenomenal trick to pull off, an audacious one to even attempt, and yet Aldea manages it effortlessly.
It’s tempting to reduce the book to a simple elevator pitch, it’s Lost in Translation meets American Psycho, but to do so always feels slightly cheap. Let us say instead, then, that is a formidable debut novel from an author it would pay to watch out for.
March 13, 2023
The (unnamed) narrator of Eva Aldea’s debut novel admires her greyhounds while they’re chasing after squirrels:
In this opening scene, one of the dogs has got lucky, and the woman has to put the squirrel out of its misery. This is a gruesome little episode that doesn’t fit neatly into the woman’s life as a university lecturer. It sets the tone for a novel that explores what darkness might lurk beneath the everyday.
In the main part of the novel, the woman’s banker husband has moved them from London to Singapore. At first, it seems as though life there will be idyllic, but the shortcomings soon become apparent. It’s too hot even for the dogs to enjoy their walks, and the narrator is disconcerted by the distorting effects of globalisation (such as coffee grown nearby, sent halfway across the world to be packaged, then back to Singapore).
The woman essentially ends up as an affluent expat housewife, which is tedious and puts her high up in a hierarchy where she doesn’t want to be. These frustrations lead her to give free rein to her darkest thoughts, and it’s written in a way that blurs the line between reality and imagination. This is what makes Singapore such a striking debut.
…it is the flutter of a furry tail above the grass that sets them off, from still to leaping in no time at all, paws thundering like hooves on the ground – she loves that sound, feels it in her chest through her own feet. She loves the sight of their bodies in flight, the double suspension rotary gallop, only sighthounds and cheetahs hunt by this fastest and most explosive of gaits, where the body is in touch with the ground only a quarter of the time. The rest is spent flying.
In this opening scene, one of the dogs has got lucky, and the woman has to put the squirrel out of its misery. This is a gruesome little episode that doesn’t fit neatly into the woman’s life as a university lecturer. It sets the tone for a novel that explores what darkness might lurk beneath the everyday.
In the main part of the novel, the woman’s banker husband has moved them from London to Singapore. At first, it seems as though life there will be idyllic, but the shortcomings soon become apparent. It’s too hot even for the dogs to enjoy their walks, and the narrator is disconcerted by the distorting effects of globalisation (such as coffee grown nearby, sent halfway across the world to be packaged, then back to Singapore).
The woman essentially ends up as an affluent expat housewife, which is tedious and puts her high up in a hierarchy where she doesn’t want to be. These frustrations lead her to give free rein to her darkest thoughts, and it’s written in a way that blurs the line between reality and imagination. This is what makes Singapore such a striking debut.
August 30, 2024
Narrated by an unnamed woman, this novel follows her move with her husband (also unnamed) from London to Singapore after he’s offered a new job. No longer able to work as an academic, she becomes a kept ex-pat housewife - encountering a vacuous and privileged existence that is quite different from the life she envisioned for herself. And despite being adamantly childfree, she finds herself in a vortex of women advocating the suitability of Singapore as a location to bring up a family. The only continued focus from her old life centres around two pet hounds. But the unrelenting heat and humidity of the Singaporean climate means that she can no longer even enjoy her daily walks with them.
Clearly the whole thing tips her slightly over the edge and she begins to engage in odd fantasies...and then the real plot twist hits. The remainder of the book isn't entirely easy reading, with prolonged and graphic scenes of violence (orchestrated by our narrator) that are frankly disturbing. Made all the more disturbing by the fact that this side of the narrator seemingly erupts out of nowhere - for all the difficulties of adjusting to life in Singapore, there is nothing in this woman's life, nor her previous life in London, to truly pinpoint why she descends into such rage.
Eva Aldea is clearly an interesting writer and she's penned a complex moral story for our contemporary globalised world - highlighting the discrepancies in equality across every facet of Singaporean society. And whilst looking into the heart of such a dark character is intriguing, it ultimately didn't feel completely convincing that this woman had been tested enough by this new world to break apart so completely. But perhaps we all have our own tipping point if pushed far enough out of our comfort zone.
Clearly the whole thing tips her slightly over the edge and she begins to engage in odd fantasies...and then the real plot twist hits. The remainder of the book isn't entirely easy reading, with prolonged and graphic scenes of violence (orchestrated by our narrator) that are frankly disturbing. Made all the more disturbing by the fact that this side of the narrator seemingly erupts out of nowhere - for all the difficulties of adjusting to life in Singapore, there is nothing in this woman's life, nor her previous life in London, to truly pinpoint why she descends into such rage.
Eva Aldea is clearly an interesting writer and she's penned a complex moral story for our contemporary globalised world - highlighting the discrepancies in equality across every facet of Singaporean society. And whilst looking into the heart of such a dark character is intriguing, it ultimately didn't feel completely convincing that this woman had been tested enough by this new world to break apart so completely. But perhaps we all have our own tipping point if pushed far enough out of our comfort zone.
December 9, 2024
weird to put an entire country/city as a title , imagine every london immigrant story titled london. something so basic about it.
i’d say the writing is quite poignant and helps me empathise with the narrator’s feeling of stuffiness boredom and eventual killer tendencies that arise. but the killings seem so random and inconclusive, also how does she get away with all these murders or did i miss the point and they didnt really happen? dont know.
outside this murder arc the narrator lacks depth or relatability apart from the regular typical complaints you hear and expect from european expats in the country. aldea illustrates these quite nicely and if that was the point of the book it does the job, though the complaints covered were shallow. it ended up being so whiny i got quite annoyed reading it and in a way its sort of classic isnt it, to go to a comfy and developed place outside of europe/us and to criticise its toxicity inauthenticity poor values etc as if these other continents exist to be exotic authentic getaways and anything different from that is weird, fake and shallow?
overall enjoyed bits and bobs of writing and ideas but dont like the message it sends across and dont feel much connection to characters/narrator. also, too much violence/graphic description more than necessary
i’d say the writing is quite poignant and helps me empathise with the narrator’s feeling of stuffiness boredom and eventual killer tendencies that arise. but the killings seem so random and inconclusive, also how does she get away with all these murders or did i miss the point and they didnt really happen? dont know.
outside this murder arc the narrator lacks depth or relatability apart from the regular typical complaints you hear and expect from european expats in the country. aldea illustrates these quite nicely and if that was the point of the book it does the job, though the complaints covered were shallow. it ended up being so whiny i got quite annoyed reading it and in a way its sort of classic isnt it, to go to a comfy and developed place outside of europe/us and to criticise its toxicity inauthenticity poor values etc as if these other continents exist to be exotic authentic getaways and anything different from that is weird, fake and shallow?
overall enjoyed bits and bobs of writing and ideas but dont like the message it sends across and dont feel much connection to characters/narrator. also, too much violence/graphic description more than necessary
March 15, 2023
Mini review - Singapore, Eva Aldea
Our narrator is a trailing spouse in the titled city, whiling away her time wondering how to while away and what to do with the time she’s given.
Between walking her majestic dogs around the city and considering the expat life our narrator stumbles upon an action which doesn’t but does fulfill the whiling away.
This is a nimble portraiture of the descent into - or the ascent from - a life lived just outside the margins.
The questions raised around the ever-possible presence of rando violence - the remediation of immediate equivocations and rationalizations, and the commitment to watch yourself with a distanced remove - in our lives, the lives we everyday almost touch, the lives in us that lurk
make for an entertaining and thought-provoking read.
Eva Aldea’s Singapore shows too much deftness in tone and character to be a debut novel
and so one is left with the question: under what pen name has Ms Aldea - if that is her real name and not her pen name - been writing?
This is a hoot of bloody poppycock, of course.
No suspicion of pen names here (unless there are…) but this is the ambivalent feeling the reader is left with:
what just happened? did that just happen? wait, really?
Our narrator is a trailing spouse in the titled city, whiling away her time wondering how to while away and what to do with the time she’s given.
Between walking her majestic dogs around the city and considering the expat life our narrator stumbles upon an action which doesn’t but does fulfill the whiling away.
This is a nimble portraiture of the descent into - or the ascent from - a life lived just outside the margins.
The questions raised around the ever-possible presence of rando violence - the remediation of immediate equivocations and rationalizations, and the commitment to watch yourself with a distanced remove - in our lives, the lives we everyday almost touch, the lives in us that lurk
make for an entertaining and thought-provoking read.
Eva Aldea’s Singapore shows too much deftness in tone and character to be a debut novel
and so one is left with the question: under what pen name has Ms Aldea - if that is her real name and not her pen name - been writing?
This is a hoot of bloody poppycock, of course.
No suspicion of pen names here (unless there are…) but this is the ambivalent feeling the reader is left with:
what just happened? did that just happen? wait, really?
June 13, 2023
I was completely absorbed by this novel - hard to believe it is a debut. I felt completely convinced by the characters and the setting whilst the ending was unexpected but tied the storyline together perfectly. Beautifully written - looking forward to a follow up already. My favourite read of 2023 so far.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews