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Disguises
“Go back to where ya come from!”
So Cathie Lee, an Australian-born Chinese, does go to where she came from: to her house in Bondi. For a journalism project she interviews an elderly man, Peter, who lived in sixties Hong Kong at a rather dangerous time. His story engulfs Cathie as ghosts from her past come to haunt her. Three people are in love, but only two are alive. Then only one.
Disguises is a story about culture and identification. Cathie, a second generation immigrant, feels like she’s trapped into wearing a Chinese disguise. She feels thoroughly Australian but people treat her as she looks. Peter’s story finally reconciles her to her background while enriching her present life. Take a chapter from Puberty Blues, add an adult version of Looking for Alibrandi, fold in some Noble House, season with a dash of Cultural Revolutionary sauce—and you have something of the flavour of Disguises.
… (Peter’s) story was the most beautiful love story I’d ever read…. Cathie Lee had undergone the age-old mythic journey of the hero, and she’d been successful. This is, indeed, a story for our times, and any time… Liz Winfield, Hobart Poet
What is especially interesting is the way the writer approaches a topic that is considered taboo by Western society. … Driftwood Manuscripts
So Cathie Lee, an Australian-born Chinese, does go to where she came from: to her house in Bondi. For a journalism project she interviews an elderly man, Peter, who lived in sixties Hong Kong at a rather dangerous time. His story engulfs Cathie as ghosts from her past come to haunt her. Three people are in love, but only two are alive. Then only one.
Disguises is a story about culture and identification. Cathie, a second generation immigrant, feels like she’s trapped into wearing a Chinese disguise. She feels thoroughly Australian but people treat her as she looks. Peter’s story finally reconciles her to her background while enriching her present life. Take a chapter from Puberty Blues, add an adult version of Looking for Alibrandi, fold in some Noble House, season with a dash of Cultural Revolutionary sauce—and you have something of the flavour of Disguises.
… (Peter’s) story was the most beautiful love story I’d ever read…. Cathie Lee had undergone the age-old mythic journey of the hero, and she’d been successful. This is, indeed, a story for our times, and any time… Liz Winfield, Hobart Poet
What is especially interesting is the way the writer approaches a topic that is considered taboo by Western society. … Driftwood Manuscripts
368 pages, ebook
First published March 6, 2013
1 person want to read
About the author
John Biggs
12 books14 followersJohn Biggs spent his professional life as an academic psychologist and educator in England, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. He has published extensively as an academic, his most important work being Teaching for Quality Learning at University (Open University Press, 1998; 4ed with Catherine Tang as co-author). He retired from Hong Kong University to concentrate on writing. He has published five novels: The Girl in the Golden House (Pandanus Books 2003), Project Integrens (Sid Harta 2006), Disguises (Burville Books 2007, republished as an-book),Tin Dragons (Maygog, 2008) and From Ashes to Ashes (Interactive Publications, 2013) and a collection of short stories, Towards Forgiveness: Sino-Tasmanian stories from two islands, Ginninderra, 2012. Non-fiction includes Tasmania over Five Generations (Forty Degrees South, 2010), a social-political history of Tasmania as seen through the eyes of the Biggs family, and Changing Universities (Strictly Literary, 2013) an academic memoir, recounting some of the more bizarre, traumatic and rewarding aspects of university life in several countries. Further details at www.johnbiggs.com.au
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