THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER is author Jemimah Wei's debut novel. In this story, she explores the themes of adaptive siblings, parents with mental health issues and the Malaysian practice of leaving the youngest child, of big families, in the care of more financially capable relatives.
The story is set in a nuclear family in Singapore, with a grandmother, a father who's a taxi driver and a librarian mother with their young girl Genevieve. Gen's grandfather had abandoned the family to go live with his other family. He's rarely mentioned by the family. The little family's life is upset with the news of the long ago abandoned grandfather having died and the family requesting to them to take in their youngest kid.
After a few initial upsets, the young girl Arin settles in her new home and gradually opens up to Gen. Gen soon becomes attached to her and the girls bond well, however, cracks appear too when Arin tries to run away or wins an essay contest with her take of abandonment. As the girls grow up it seems Arin is taking over Gen's life in terms of their mother's attention, love and even the success owed to Gen. The story continues in the same breath as the girls grow up and Arin becomes a TV star and Gen leaves the country for 4 years.
Upon return, Gen has to live through it all in order to avoid upsetting her mother who's unaware of the dynamic between the girls. Right until her death the girls maintain a semblance of unity which is off the moment their mother's back is turned. The story explores the dynamic between 2 girls being brought up together and how their lives go in different directions despite what was intended for them. It shows how betrayal, hints of jealousy and pride create a valley of differences in the lives of two young girls who were meant to be sisters for life.
The story shows how social and cultural influences sometimes make or break families. We see glimpses of it in how Arin comes into Gen's life and home, Gen's grandparent's behaviour, and how their social circle plays a part in their lives.
While I enjoyed the drama of how the girls butted heads and betrayed one another, it is a story for a time when the reader is in it to explore those themes. I read it while I was busy at work and felt like shaking the girls and telling them to play nice and not against the other. I would suggest you read it if you are looking to explore a fresh new Asian writer or stories set in Asia. Happy Reading.
In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.
Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. Knowing that failure is not an option, the sisters learn to depend entirely on one another as they spurn outside friendships, leisure, and any semblance of a social life in pursuit of academic perfection and passage to a better future.
When a stinging betrayal violently estranges Genevieve and Arin, Genevieve must weigh the value of ambition versus familial love, home versus the outside world, and allegiance to herself versus allegiance to the people who made her who she is. In the story of a family and its contention with the roiling changes of our rapidly modernizing, winner-take-all world, The Original Daughter is a major literary debut, rife with emotional clarity and searing social insight.
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