Hong Kong Shadows
Two American teenagers in Hong Kong fall into the chaos of their own cultural revolution.
WHITE GHOST GIRLS
A Novel
By Alice Greenway
Black Cat. 168 pp. Paperback, $13
"What can you give me?" is the opening line of Alice Greenway's debut novel, White Ghost Girls . For Kate, the adolescent narrator of the story, this is a question with no satisfactory answer, one that resonates with urgency and vulnerability as she recounts the painful summer of 1967 when her world spun out of control.
Kate and her older sister, Frankie, are Americans, living with their parents in Hong Kong, a safe place for the family yet close enough for regular visits from their father, who works as a war photographer in Vietnam. Their beautiful but distant mother has chosen to follow her husband to Hong Kong, fearing that if she remained in the United States, he might find a mistress or become addicted to war itself. While her husband is away, she immerses herself in her world of watercolors, the needs of her children left to their Chinese nanny, Ah Bing. When her husband returns from his missions, everything focuses on him. Their quiet home is filled with people who clamor to hear about his adventures. The girls crave their father's attention, but he remains as inaccessible as if he were still in Vietnam, his coterie of friends creating a wall impossible for them to scale.
For the sisters, Hong Kong is an exotic place, hot, crowded and dangerous, filled with strange sights and exotic smells, not the safe haven that their parents presume it to be. Ah Bing takes them to Buddhist temples and exposes them to Chinese folklore and superstitions, while the Cultural Revolution fomenting in China spills over into the city.
One day while the girls are with Ah Bing in a crowded street market, they run off in search of adventure and find themselves taken captive by two unsavory Chinese men. Frankie is held at knife-point while Kate is forced to deliver a bag that, unbeknownst to her, contains a bomb. The girls manage to escape unharmed, but the next day Kate sees pictures in the newspaper of the resulting carnage. She is consumed with guilt and shame, but there is no one for her to share this secret with, not even her sister, "because Frankie sets herself up as warrior, fighter, heroine, victim, all combined," always relegating her younger sister to the position of "follower, sidekick." Kate knows only too well that revealing this horrific information would upset the star role that Frankie has created for herself in their relationship.
Under the weight of her silence, Kate grows ever more resentful of Frankie. And when her father returns from Vietnam, she struggles with her ambivalence toward him, basking in his love whenever he calls her his "Katenick," jealous of his friends and Vietnam. While Kate's feelings of isolation intensify, so do her feelings of dread as she watches Frankie's behavior become more and more reckless.
At the end of the book, Kate is no longer a child; she is making those beginning steps toward adulthood, the act of living having forced her to see the world in a sadder light. Yet this is not just Kate's story; Frankie, in fact, shares equal billing. White Ghost Girls is a gut-wrenching exploration of the complexities of sisterly love, delivered with vividness and poignancy. As you close the book, you will find yourself -- like the narrator -- haunted by events of a summer long ago. ·
Judy Fong Bates is the author of "Midnight at the Dragon Café."
