Salt Fish GirlSalt Fish Girl is the mesmerizing tale of an ageless female character who shifts shape and form through time and place. Told in the beguiling voice of a narrator who is fish, snake, girl, and woman - all of whom must struggle against adversity for survival - the novel is set alternately in nineteenth-century China and in a futuristic Pacific Northwest. At turns whimsical and wry, Salt Fish Girl intertwines the story of Nu Wa, the shape-shifter, and that of Miranda, a troubled young girl living in the walled city of Serendipity circa 2044. Miranda is haunted by traces of her mother’s glamourous cabaret career, the strange smell of durian fruit that lingers about her, and odd tokens reminiscient of Nu Wa. Could Miranda be infected by the Dreaming Disease that makes the past leak into the present? Framed by a playful sense of magical realism, Salt Fish Girl reveals a futuristic Pacific Northwest where corporations govern cities, factory workers are cybernetically engineered, middle-class labour is a video game, and those who haven’t sold out to commerce and other ills must fight the evil powers intent on controlling everything. Rich with ancient Chinese mythology and cultural lore, this remarkable novel is about gender, love, honour, intrigue, and fighting against oppression. |
From inside the book
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... spindly tall children with mutilated faces were holding my father's head down in a cesspool and beating him with spiky iron balls on chains . They stuck their long sharp fingers 29 Miranda 30 Salt Fish Girl into his pockets , into his.
... finger . I aimed at their open beaks and poured a long thin stream of digits into their mouths . The birds swelled and ... fingers into their eyes . I kicked them in the guts and shot streams of fire from my arms and knees simultaneously ...
... fingers off me , you ugly bugger ! " I yelled . But I didn't have to say much more because sud- denly there was a small explosion like a pop can bursting right beside the cash register , and then flames spreading rapidly up the walls ...
Contents
MIRANDA First Symptoms I I | 11 |
NU WA The Salt Fish Girl | 47 |
MIRANDA The Memory Disease | 59 |
Copyright | |
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