SISTER SNAKE By Amanda Lee Koe Fiction/Ethos Books/Paperback/ 256 pages/$22 ★★★★★
Five years after the virtuosic literary extravagance of Delayed Rays Of A Star (2019) comes Sister Snake (2024), a mighty and fantastical contemporary retelling of an old Chinese folk tale with relatively unornamented but equally propulsive prose.
Her previous book was an ambitious global novel told through the journeys of the 20th century's biggest women film icons. This time, Lee Koe's two diasporic and immortal serpentine sisters transcend time too – they leave their reptilian past behind in Hangzhou, acquiring human form to traverse centuries from Confucian China to Victorian England.
The green viper and white krait are estranged in the 21st century. Xiaoqing, also known as Emerald, sporting a green buzzcut and bunking with a gay artist, is a thrill-seeking wastrel in neurotic New York.
Her elder sister, Bai Suzhen, amassing wealth over the centuries, is married to a pragmatic politician vying to become synthetic Singapore's next Chief Minister.
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