The Heartsick Diaspora by Eliane Chiew
Review by Han Clark
In her debut collection, the twice Bridport Prize-winning author conjures a wry and compelling collection of short stories
From the moment you pick up The Heartsick Diaspora by Elaine Chiew, and read the evocative title, it becomes impossible to resist its charms. The front cover depicts a slice of white toast pincered between chopsticks: a playful image which perfectly sets the wry, knowing tone of this collection of short stories.
The Heartsick Diaspora is elegantly restless. The stories contained within slip between continents, and weave between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with ease, neither hurrying the reader, nor allowing time to dawdle and gawk at the carefully expressed foreignness of the diaspora experience. This is only possible because of the humour and sensitivity of Chiew’s writing, which bestows an overarching, gentle humanity upon each story.
In ‘Run of the Molars’, an elderly mother arrives in London from Singapore to visit her three daughters. She stays with Lily, the youngest of the three and the only one with whom she has a form of open communication, due to them both being able to read expressions so clearly. Although the story is focussed on the generational and cultural differences which have yawned wide between the mother and her daughters in the time they have lived abroad, one does not need to have any understanding of Chinese or Singaporean customs to appreciate the nerve-wracking exhaustion of a judgemental and passive-aggressive parent poking at the life you have built for yourself.
In less skilled hands, this type of family dynamic could be played for cheap laughs, or rendered mournful, but Chiew navigates the slippery slope of ‘kitchen drama’ with delicate skill. Indeed, throughout the collection, the theme of complex familial bonds features prominently.
’Rap of the Tiger Mother’ follows the story of a newly single mother raising her sensitive, day-dreamer son, Ethan, amidst the viper-nest of fiercely competitive mothers, and the difficulties of playground culture—difficult not for the children, but for their adult guardians! As the children form friendships and play in harmony together, the mothers struggle to maintain civility, battling for perfect cupcakes and agonising over their children’s reading capabilities in a competition which cannot be won.
The story comes to a head when Ethan rejects the coveted role of Mary in the school nativity play, in favour of being a sheep, triggering an existential crisis for his mother who, as is her custom, raps her concerns and uses this surprising medium to confront her fears and trepidations: ‘Somethin’ be wrong when a boy of four/doubts his reading skills/learns his limits/feels he’s behind before he gets through the door.’ This endearing quirk is a cornerstone of one of the lessons Chiew teaches throughout her collection: do not determine who a character is by the mere fact of their ethnicity.
This is further explored in the titular story, which also happens to be my personal favourite within the collection. Written with biting wit, this story is set amid an ‘ethnic writer’s group that used to meet weekly at Caffe Nero in Bayswater… upgraded itself to a Le Pain Quotidian in Notting Hill.’ It is structured like a play: a reflective self-mockery which continues throughout as the character’s each reveal what they are working on, often fabricating plots to win over the newest member of the group: the handsome and elusive Wei.
It is during a conversation in this story that Chiew allows her characters to speak not only of the facts of their diaspora experience, but the emotional toll of being seen as ‘other’, and how having continual cultural assumptions made about you feels: ‘Everyday there are social interactions, minute as each individual episode goes, but cumulatively they begin to absorb into your tissue. Little razors handed to you every day.’ The softly observed truth of this statement is testament to Chiew’s unobtrusive authorial style: a signature within her writing which reassures the reader that they are in safe hands.
Written over the course of a decade, this collection is packed with prize winning stories alongside new works, and is the result of Chiew’s own journey of personal discovery and identity. In the acknowledgements, she writes about choosing which stories to include in this collection and how she chose to order them: ‘it became reflective of my own journey of “nostos” – the root word for the ancient Greek for “nostalgia”, with the emphasis not so much on destination, but the act of searching for “return.”’
This honesty is reflected upon and delivered in each story, and although every reader will have favourites which align with their own personal taste in fiction, the collection as a whole is a striking and important debut, and one which will surely hold the door ajar for whatever bold venture Elaine Chiew makes next.
The Heartsick Diaspora by Elaine Chiew is published 23/1/20