Title: Chinese opera
First published: 2008
Description: Chinese Opera is a dark and dazzling novel set in an all too plausible New Zealand of the near future. 'Little Frank' is 120 years old and he's lost his mind - or the part that can put damaged memories back together. Once the gang boss of 'The Place', he's traded his imagination for secure long life. Trapped in a luxurious present of mindless routine, he's jolted awake in 2090 to the bizarre facts of his world: his obsession with the female lead at the Chinese Opera, his unsavoury liaison with the Binh Xuyen body-part pirates, their surveillance of his movements. Above all, his lost memory of the moment in a pine-scented limo when he traded his imagination for long life. To rebuild this memory, Little Frank has to abandon longevity. Will he recover the truth before he Times Out? Will he have time to understand his obsession with the singer Madame Hee? What happened to the young mother who abandoned him? This provocative novel touches on many current hot topics including plastic surgery, designer drugs and artificial extension of human life; the environment and water rights; immigration into NZ especially from Asia. These and other concerns form the arresting backdrop to Little Frank's story of belonging, longing, dislocation and memory.
Subjects: New Zealand fiction, Fiction, general, New zealand, fiction
Time periods: 21st century