Spaces: People/Places

by Verena Tay

From a man with a hair fetish to a younger sister fighting to accept her elder sister's marriage, from a retiree downgrading from the terrace house where he raised his family to a fantastical history of a local neighbourhood, from a security guard's relationship with a Filipino maid to an encounter with a building too avant-garde and high tech in design, from a taxi driver bumping into his ex-wife within his cab to an imagined retelling of the life and times of Mimi Wong (the first woman executed for murder after Singapore's independence): each story within Spaces: People / Places explores the interior landscapes of the various protagonists and / or the exterior settings amidst which each protagonist functions. Verena Tay's second short story collection is a book that, once opened, you can't put down.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Joely · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is like a box of chocolates. You don't know what flavour it'll be, but you know for sure it'll be delicious. Each short story was amazingly written, and I genuinely enjoyed how versatile and colourful Tay's writing is. After finishing each story, I found myself taking a deep breath to process how beautiful it was. Friendly note though that there is sex and violence in some stories, so this would be a great book for a slightly older audience. Each story resonates by being familiar enough to be understood, and portrayed deliciously. You'll be in for a treat!

[E'in Nadh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes the writing is unnecessarily fleshed out in very unnecessary places
It's actually my writing style too but now I know that not everyone likes it

[Natalie Ng · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was personally a huge letdown. The writing was unnecessarily descriptive such that it distracted from the main story. Characters seemed to switch between Singlish and Queen’s English, and their dialogue would sometimes explicitly reveal the writer’s attempts at thought provoking content.

That said, one story in particular proved to be a saving grace. Femme Fatale is a reimagined telling of Mimi Wong, the first female to be executed for murder in post-independent Singapore. I found this chapter gripping, and appreciated the different view points explored here.

Also not sure if I was reading an old version, but the book was also poorly edited with painfully obvious grammatical mistakes and sudden changes in character names. Overall, an absolutely frustrating read as I felt like I was reading a collection of compositions by my secondary school English teacher.

[Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a visit to the Peranakan Museum in Singapore, I chanced by a curious vending machine. Inside were rows of books, wrapped so as to obscure the title and author. Knowing that I would probably regret it if I didn't roll the dice, I gave the machine the S$20 ($15 US) and made my selection (A-4). My reward was Spaces: People/Places.

Verena Tay, a Singaporean writer and playwright, gives a collection of short stories set amidst Singapore's fast-changing landscape. While Tay says that her work explores the relationship between people and the places that they inhabit, I found the work (with the exception of one or two of the stories within) to center around the sadness that accompanies transitions, whether it is when a fond acquaintance leaves for work elsewhere, when a person leaves the home that they raised a family in, or dealing with the oppressive modernity of high-tech buildings. This leads to an easy-to-read, yet thought-provoking collections, which I would highly recommend not only to residents of Singapore, but to those who want to explore the feelings of sadness associated with the transitions we encounter in life. For me, this was S$20 (again, $15 US) well spent.