SOME PEOPLE CHOOSE THEIR DISGUISE, OTHERS HAVE IT FORCED UPON THEM
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Disguises
ISBN: 1-921019-55-7
Publisher: Burville Books, July 2007
Paperback, 352pp, 200mm x 135mm
Cathie Lee is a Gen Y Australian girl — but as a second generation Chinese, she’s forced to wear a Chinese disguise. That’s cool — until Pauline Hanson strikes and Cathie experiences racism from her fellow Australians. She writes about one nasty experience that wins a competition — and that decides her career: journalism. For a final year assignment, she interviews Peter Harris, a harmless looking old guy she meets in a café. But the story he tells of a love affaire in ‘sixties Hong Kong, the Cultural Revolution, police corruption and murky family secrets detonates a time bomb. that blows Cathie’s life apart. Peter too is in disguise. Cathie enacts a charade. Three people in love but only two are alive. Then only one.
Take a chapter from Puberty Blues, stir in some Looking for Alibrandi, fold in some Noble House, season with some Cultural Revolutionary sauce — and you have something of the flavour of Disguises. |
QUOTES FROM REVIEWS
(Peter’s) story was the most beautiful love story I’d ever read …. After I’d finished I realised Cathie Lee had undergone the age-old mythic journey of the hero, and she’d been successful. This is, indeed, a story for our times, and any time …
– Liz Winfield, Hobart Poet –
Excellent command of language and style … characters well drawn and convincing … sense of place is also extremely competent. … an excellent manuscript. … What is especially interesting is the way the writer approaches a topic that is considered taboo by Western society.
– Driftwood Manuscripts –
excerpts
A devastated Peter arrives in Hong Kong 
Peter takes Connie for a ride …
See also Lunch with Francesca
