Behind the Moon

Hsu Ming Teo

Allen & Unwin

Otago Daily Times, October 5th 2004

The first thing that struck me about Hsu-Ming Teo’s Behind the Moon was the sheer beauty of her writing, and the best encapsulation of the book’s thematic centre is from her own words.   “What were the overlaps that kept human beings adjacent and anchoured to your life?” asks one of her characters “How was it that some people managed to manacle others to their lives…whereas others found friendship as weak as water, sparkling and slipping away through cupped fingers, leaving only the impression of wetness and a thirst unquenched?” 

Tien Ho, Justin Cheong and Nigel “Gibbo” Gibson’s friendship begins at primary school, forged by their social exclusion in an Australian society firmly divided into ethnic strata.   Tien, a Vietnemese refugee, and the Singaporean Justin are both determined to escape their backgrounds and just be Australian, while Gibbo, the quintessential fat-boy outcast, yearns to be Asian so that he has a community to belong to.   Forced together by difference rather than similarity, they each retain their secrets.  Tien is caught in a battle with her mother (of whom she is ashamed) over their differing expectations of maternal and filial duty.  Justin struggles with the shame of being gay and Asian, a minority within a minority.  Gibbo desperately wants to be loved, but is forced to watch silently as Tien and Justin gravitate towards each other by a shared cultural heritage, unintentionally leaving him yet again an outsider.  Like so many childhood friendships, theirs begins to founder as they reach adolescence, when a volatile emotional mix  of jealousy and misunderstanding strains the ties between them.  An accidental meeting between Justin’s mother, Annabel, and Gibbo’s mother, Gillian, results in a reunion of the three families (to watch Lady Dianna’s funeral-a Dead Dianna Dinner), at which things are said that might best have been left unspoken.  The resulting conflict shatters the few remaining strands connecting them, and forces each of them to re-evaluate the nature of friendship and love.

Teo’s use of language and imagery is both original and striking, crystalising into instants with a tangibility and immediacy more often found in poetry than prose.   She does not than provide easy answers to the complex questions the narrative raises, creating a work that is thought provoking and intellectually satisfying.  And anybody brave enough start a novel “Justin Cheong believed in the truth that was to be found in toilets.” has to be worth a second look.