White Ghost Girls

It was c1967, the Vietnam War was raging and the unrest caused by Mao’s Cultural Revolution was creeping across the boarder into Hong Kong. This was the summer that Kate turned 13, and her life changed forever.

Her father was away for weeks at a time, photographing the horrors of the Vietnam War for Time magazine, and even when he was home his thoughts were back in ‘Nam. Her mother lives in a naïve, idealistic utopia which exists nowhere except in her mind and her art as she waits for her absent husband to return. Kate and her older sister Frankie are left to run wild. Only their amah Ah Bing looks out for them, in her own gruff, foul-mouthed way.

Kate is our narrator, and that fateful summer was filled with swimming, trips to Ah show more Bing’s temple, floating in sampans, picnicking on the shores of unspoilt bays and discovering boys for the first time. But the fun of this summer is slowly leached away as Frankie’s need for love and attention starts to create resentment in Kate and drives a wedge between the close sisters. Kate’s eyes are opened to her sister’s behaviour following the ‘Lychee Incident’ involving Communist protesters after which Frankie ignored her sister’s discomfort and fear, and at the same time refused Kate the comfort of confiding in her parents with her attention stealing ways.

In her bid for any attention from her disengaged parents, Frankie’s behaviour becomes increasingly reckless and self destructive as Kate, thinking to protect her sister, keeps her secrets, unintentionally denying Frankie the attention she craves – even if that attention is a well earned telling off. Frankie’s behaviour forces Kate to observe the dysfunctional dynamics in her family’s relationships.

When eventually Frankie’s selfishness has disastrous consequences Kate is robbed of her sister, their father of his passion for photography and Vietnam and their mother of her idealism. All of them lost the Hong Kong home that they loved.

Greenway’s prose is beautiful and dreamy, but understated. A number of traumatic events occur that summer, but the very short chapters mean the descriptions of events are brief and creates the sense of distance, as Kate remembers this long ago summer, any lingering horror is diluted by time.
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This is Greenway’s debut novel, and it was deservedly long listed for the Orange Prize. White Ghost Girls is a haunting coming of age story, where the need for love destroyed a vibrant young life, and completely altered the lives of those left to pick up the pieces. show less

Nostalgia. Before you fall into the rhythm of wistful recollection, you really have to give your readers something to reference back to as a touchstone. Starting with the dolorousness, insisting that the foreshadowed heartbreak is already palpable—that feels artificial. The protagonist's projected nostalgia onto her father's beloved place—Saigon during the Vietnam War, which she has never seen in the way that I have never seen the villages outside of Hong Kong—at least parallels this weird obsession-for-something-unseen. Sweaty and threatening female adolescence. Strong autobiographical bent.

More a series of vignettes than a novel.

White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenaway is a haunting story about two sisters growing up in Hong Kong. This is another book that I am still thinking about. The younger sister is the narrator and so we see the older sister's actions through a bit of a filter. It has me thinking about the details that were left out that would explain why the older sister acted the way she did. In addition, this author has a poetic way with words. Every once in a while I would stop and reread a sentence or paragraph not for content but because of the way the words flowed on the page.

What struck me most about this novel is, that it's so very sad.
Usually I can handle sad, but for some odd reason I found it very hard in this book.
I loved the descriptions of the scenery, the country, the way a potret was made of all characters, big and small. But I'm very happy I'm done with this book!

This debut novel by Alice Greenway is set in the summer of 1967. This is a story of two American sisters living in Hongkong when the Maoist revolutionaries seem to be spilling over to Hongkong. Their father is a Time magazine photographer stationed in Vietnam and the mother is a painter and very remote. The author is able to convey the inner turmoil of these teenagers and Hongkong comes alive with its heat and color in her description. Set against this political background of Vietnam & Hongkong, this tragic story about the two sisters really keeps you engrossed.

Very engrossing story: This is a short book that can be read in a day or two. It is very well written with an interesting setting and plot line. You can see, hear and smell the authors description of Hong Kong, and the references to Viet Nam during the war are very haunting. This book would make a good gift.

Good but slight