Singapore Shelf: Darkness, rage and acceptance in a place people call home
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SINGAPORE – In this week’s Singapore Shelf, The Straits Times looks at books hot off the local press. Buy the books at Amazon
Catskull author Myle Yan Tay writes to process reactions to microaggressions
For many people, the circuit breaker in 2020 was a time of enforced rest and relaxation.
Myle Yan Tay, however, was consumed by restless energy.
The 28-year-old hammered at his keyboard, 500 words a day, until he held in his hands the first draft of his debut novel after 2½ months.
And what a burst of a novel catskull is, seething with darkness and rage.
Book review: A Singaporean vigilante in Myle Yan Tay’s dark debut novel catskull
PHOTOS: ETHOS BOOKS
“There are two Singapores,” observes Ram, the protagonist of Singaporean author Myle Yan Tay’s debut novel catskull.
There is a Singapore of surfaces, a good, clean garden city. And then there is another Singapore, the one he roams at night on his bicycle: a city of exclusions and sudden violence, of cracks, bruises and screams in the night.
Ram thinks: “When I ride my bike, I am a bullet shot at the city’s heart. I am the knife slashing its veins open, pouring its blood onto the streets.”
Book review: Claiming Susan Chin is a charming destigmatisation towards persons with autism
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF EPIGRAM BOOKS
With incredible depth and heart, Singaporean author Tham Cheng-E destigmatises perceptions about people with autism in his third novel.
The protagonist, 15-year-old Singaporean Susan Chin, is the only survivor of a plane crash in the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Orphaned, her life changes immediately as questions around her survival begin and conspiracy theories arise – how did an autistic girl survive for 26 days when no one else did?
Book review: Agnes Chew paints tender portraits of ordinary lives
PHOTOS: EPIGRAM BOOKS
In this slice-of-life short story anthology, one almost feels as if one is channel-surfing through the lives of ordinary Singaporeans.
Timeless and unifying themes of love, loss, death and coming-of-age are deftly woven through the narratives, each dealing with a balancing act between desire and disillusionment.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers July 15
Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood tops the fiction chart this week.
