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Sandi Tan
Hachette Audio
August 7, 2012/ ASIN: B008U2PAUU
General Fiction / China/ Audiobook - 21 hours, 38 minutes
Amazon
Reviewed
by Jo Rogers
The Black Isle is the story of a young Chinese girl from
Shanghai. It is told in flashback form, beginning and ending with
Ling as an old woman. The memories begin when Ling and her twin
brother, Li, are celebrating their seventh birthday. According to
their mother, when Ling was born first, she was a healthy baby.
When Li arrived five minutes later, he was thin and malnourished.
Their mother claimed that Ling was greedy during their gestation
and took more than her fair share of the nourishment. They were
born in 1922.
On that day, Li asked his mother to take them to the park. Their
mother was agoraphobic, and shouted a resounding “No”
to a son she denied nothing. She relented later and let one of the
two nannies take them out. While they were there, they encountered
an older gentleman who wanted to show them something. It was a tiny
kitten with three broken legs. It belonged to the gentleman, and
he wanted them to break the kitten’s neck, which Li did. From
then on, Li suffered from anemia and Ling began to see and hear
ghosts.
The Black Isle is a captivating story of growing up in
China in the era preceding World War II and surviving Japanese occupation.
It is the story of rebuilding shattered lives after the war only
to see them destroyed by the very ones who rebuilt them in the first
place. It is the story of growing old alone and bitter. It is beautifully
written. The characters are fully developed and totally human. The
plot is simple and takes some unusual turns with the ghosts. Though
the story is long, reader Sarah Zimmerman makes it well worth the
time spent listening. So, listen to The Black Isle and
take a journey to another time and place.
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