AustLit

'Ismael, a transplanted Singaporean, lives on a bucolic suburban Brisbane street. His job is to decide whether asylum-seekers get to stay in the country, a dilemma that never fails to remind him of his own immigrant status. But then his life begins to take on the hue of a nightmare: his neighbour inexplicably commits suicide, his wife dies of cancer, his daughter abandons him for the United States, and his Siamese cat goes missing.

'In Lau Siew Mei’s new novel, an enclosed Australian neighbourhood becomes a microcosm of a world increasingly hostile towards migrants.'  (Publication summary)

'Contemporary Singapore: Actress Chiang Ching performs Madame Mao Tse-Tung on stage while her husband, Tang, is arrested and detained without trial. Struggling to understand her own role and her country's cultural and political history Chiang Ching, like her alter-ego, becomes increasingly delusional, and the lines of her world - the real, mythical and imagined - become blurred. Lau Siew Mel creates a challenging and potent weave of Chinese diaspora, political intrigue and personal journeys in a battle for meaning.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.