Written in Black
SynopsisPlot
Written in Black offers a snapshot of a few days in the life of ten-year-old Jonathan Lee, attending the funeral of his Ah Kong, or grandfather, and still reeling from the drama of his mother leaving for Australia and his brother getting kicked out of the house and joining a rock band. Annoyed at being the brunt of his father’s pent-up anger, Jonathan escapes his grandfather’s wake in an empty coffin and embarks on a journey through the backwaters of Brunei to bring his disowned brother back for the funeral and to learn the truth about his absent mother. On a quest that takes him across the little-known Sultanate, past gangs of glue-sniffing poklans (Brunei’s teenage delinquents), cursed houses and weird shopkeepers, Jonathan discovers adventure, courage, friendship and, finally, himself.
Story
About this book
Ten-year-old Jonathan Lee is having a difficult week. His grandfather has died, his mother has left for Australia, and his older brother has been thrown out of the family home for joining a rock band. Jonathan is stuck at the funeral wake, absorbing his father's frustration, with no clear way to fix any of it. When he hides inside an empty coffin and ends up slipping away from the gathering, a small act of escape turns into something larger: a trip across Brunei to find his brother and bring him back for the funeral.
The novel is set in Brunei, a small sultanate on the northwest coast of Borneo. KH Lim uses the setting to move Jonathan through places and people rarely seen in fiction: glue-sniffing teenage delinquents known locally as poklans, houses said to be cursed, and eccentric shopkeepers in the country's backwaters. The tone balances dark humor with the real confusion of a child caught between adult decisions he cannot control.
Jonathan's search for his brother doubles as a search for the truth about why his mother left. The story stays close to his perspective, filtering family fracture and loss through the logic and stubbornness of a ten-year-old navigating a country small enough to cross but full of unexpected obstacles.
