Genre Fiction
![Rachel Heng - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B074MBB7XJ.jpg)
The Great Reclamation: A Novel
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023 BY TIME, THE WASHINGTON POST, OPRAH DAILY, BUSTLE, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND MORE!
"Stunning…epic…impressive…It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters."-The New York Times
"A beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the complicated love story, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family." -Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy's unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country
Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility-something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.
By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.
An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people's feet.
"Stunning…epic…impressive…It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters."-The New York Times
"A beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the complicated love story, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family." -Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy's unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country
Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility-something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.
By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.
An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people's feet.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for The Great Reclamation:
"Epic for the reasons life itself is epic. The Great Reclamation asks the reader to confront the big things, like love and identity and loss, but it allows us to revel in the little things, too, from the buttery taste of steamed fish to the smooth surface of a rubber seed. It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters."-The New York Times
"A love story about both heart and home."-Time
"Original and moving...It was not that long ago, in 2018, that Singapore appeared as a sort of flawless Wakanda-like place in the movie 'Crazy Rich Asians.' In The Great Reclamation, Singapore is given the complexity it deserves." -The Boston Globe
"An exquisitely written, heartbreakingly beautiful tale of love and war." -Ms. Magazine
"Heng wrings a great deal of emotion from Boon's experiences and relationships. . .skillfully capturing the inner psyche of a Singaporean everyman caught between two immovable worlds. This epic undertaking is not to be missed." –Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"[A] story scaffolded against a sweeping backdrop-the politics of colonialism, World War II in Southeast Asia, ecology, the inexorable forces of development and modernization-with very little of that ever mentioned, instead focusing on the experiences of the characters in language of perfect simplicity. . .Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful."-Kirkus, STARRED review
"Heng captures the individual and collective challenges of being human, and explores what a modern country might become after the disruption and displacement of World War II. Every bit of it is a delight."-BookPage, STARRED review
"Rachel Heng's moving, mighty novel grapples with the cultural unmooring that accompanies personal and collective change."-Christian Science Monitor
"I loved this ...
"Epic for the reasons life itself is epic. The Great Reclamation asks the reader to confront the big things, like love and identity and loss, but it allows us to revel in the little things, too, from the buttery taste of steamed fish to the smooth surface of a rubber seed. It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters."-The New York Times
"A love story about both heart and home."-Time
"Original and moving...It was not that long ago, in 2018, that Singapore appeared as a sort of flawless Wakanda-like place in the movie 'Crazy Rich Asians.' In The Great Reclamation, Singapore is given the complexity it deserves." -The Boston Globe
"An exquisitely written, heartbreakingly beautiful tale of love and war." -Ms. Magazine
"Heng wrings a great deal of emotion from Boon's experiences and relationships. . .skillfully capturing the inner psyche of a Singaporean everyman caught between two immovable worlds. This epic undertaking is not to be missed." –Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"[A] story scaffolded against a sweeping backdrop-the politics of colonialism, World War II in Southeast Asia, ecology, the inexorable forces of development and modernization-with very little of that ever mentioned, instead focusing on the experiences of the characters in language of perfect simplicity. . .Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful."-Kirkus, STARRED review
"Heng captures the individual and collective challenges of being human, and explores what a modern country might become after the disruption and displacement of World War II. Every bit of it is a delight."-BookPage, STARRED review
"Rachel Heng's moving, mighty novel grapples with the cultural unmooring that accompanies personal and collective change."-Christian Science Monitor
"I loved this ...
Readers Top Reviews
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One
Decades later, the kampong would trace it all back to this very hour, waves draining the light from this slim, hungry moon. Decades later, they would wonder what could have been had the Lees simply turned back, had some sickness come upon the father manning the outboard motor, or some screaming fit befallen the youngest, forcing them to abandon the day's work and steer their small wooden craft home. Decades later, they would wonder if any difference could have been made at all.
Or would past still coalesce into present: The uncle dying the way he did, an outcast burned to blackened bone in a house some said was never his anyway. The kampong still destroyed, not swallowed whole by the waves in accordance with some angry god's decree, as the villagers had always feared, but taken to pieces and sold for parts by the inhabitants themselves. If the little boy, the sweetest, most sensitive boy in the kampong, would nevertheless have become a man who so easily bent the future to his will.
Perhaps he would have; perhaps this had nothing to do with the hour, the boat, the sea, and everything to do with the boy. But these questions could only be asked after the wars had been fought and the nation born and the sea-once thought of as dependable, eternal-stopped with ton upon ton of sand. These questions would not occur to anyone until the events had fully passed them by, until there was nothing to be done, all were fossils, all was calcified history.
For now, though, the year was still 1941, the territory of Singapore still governed by the Ang Mohs as it had been for the past century, and the boy, very little, very afraid, still crouched in the back of his father's fishing boat.
Lee Ah Boon was seven, already a year late, as Hia liked to remind him. Hia, now nine, had taken his first trip on his sixth birthday. But while Hia at six had been a boy with plump, tanned arms and strong calves like springs that could propel him over the low wooden fence at the perimeter of the kampong, Ah Boon at seven was still cave-chested, with the scrawny limbs and delicate hands of a girl. Despite as much time spent in the sun as his brother, Ah Boon's skin retained its milky pallor, as fine as the white flesh of an expensive fish steamed to perfection. Hence his nickname.
"Bawal!"
At the sound of his brother's voice, Ah Boon sprang away from the boat's side. In the weak moonlight the sea around them appeared as viscous black oil, roiling gently in the breeze. He shuddered to think what could be waiting beneath its pleated surface.
"Scared, ah, Bawal?"
Hia clambered toward Ah Boon, stepping over the ropes and nets that littered the floor of the small boat. He moved with a careless, threatening ease, like the foot-long monitor lizards that scuttled through the tall grass around the kampong. Hia grabbed Ah Boon's shoulders, turning his torso out toward the sea.
"Wah, so brave!"
Hia pushed his brother suddenly, as if to tip him out of the boat. The sea lurched up toward Ah Boon's face and he clawed at the side, letting out a small whimper.
"You know," Hia said. "Pa never tell you everything about your first trip out. He never tell you about the night swim, hor?"
Hia went on to say that it was a tradition that every fisherman's son went through on his first trip. That soon, Pa would stop the boat in the middle of the empty sea and tell Ah Boon to get out into the water.
All around them pulsed the ocean. And up above, blank and starless, was the unending sky. A cloud scraped the thin moon; the darkness deepened.
Ah Boon thought of the fish. Bright-eyed creatures with silver bodies of pure, spasming muscle. For the past year it had been his terrible job to help sort them, still alive in the nets when his father came home. Horrified by gasping, desperate mouths and manic shiny eyes, he had run away crying at first, but the jeers of his brother and the stern, clicking tongue of his father eventually reconciled him to his task.
Thus Ah Boon had learned to present a blank face, to control his expression even when he stepped by accident on a slimy, stingless jellyfish on the beach and the wet alive matter oozed between his toes. He had perfected the containment of his distaste for the unruly water that so dominated the life around him, felt in the pit of his belly like a cold glass marble he'd accidentally swallowed. But what Hia was suggesting now-to plunge his small self into the wide black sea-this he could not bear.
"Don't want" was all he said.
"Don't want?" Hia cried, almost gleefully. "You got no choice! You must swim away, far, far away, until you hear us call you back. It's the tradition. ...
Decades later, the kampong would trace it all back to this very hour, waves draining the light from this slim, hungry moon. Decades later, they would wonder what could have been had the Lees simply turned back, had some sickness come upon the father manning the outboard motor, or some screaming fit befallen the youngest, forcing them to abandon the day's work and steer their small wooden craft home. Decades later, they would wonder if any difference could have been made at all.
Or would past still coalesce into present: The uncle dying the way he did, an outcast burned to blackened bone in a house some said was never his anyway. The kampong still destroyed, not swallowed whole by the waves in accordance with some angry god's decree, as the villagers had always feared, but taken to pieces and sold for parts by the inhabitants themselves. If the little boy, the sweetest, most sensitive boy in the kampong, would nevertheless have become a man who so easily bent the future to his will.
Perhaps he would have; perhaps this had nothing to do with the hour, the boat, the sea, and everything to do with the boy. But these questions could only be asked after the wars had been fought and the nation born and the sea-once thought of as dependable, eternal-stopped with ton upon ton of sand. These questions would not occur to anyone until the events had fully passed them by, until there was nothing to be done, all were fossils, all was calcified history.
For now, though, the year was still 1941, the territory of Singapore still governed by the Ang Mohs as it had been for the past century, and the boy, very little, very afraid, still crouched in the back of his father's fishing boat.
Lee Ah Boon was seven, already a year late, as Hia liked to remind him. Hia, now nine, had taken his first trip on his sixth birthday. But while Hia at six had been a boy with plump, tanned arms and strong calves like springs that could propel him over the low wooden fence at the perimeter of the kampong, Ah Boon at seven was still cave-chested, with the scrawny limbs and delicate hands of a girl. Despite as much time spent in the sun as his brother, Ah Boon's skin retained its milky pallor, as fine as the white flesh of an expensive fish steamed to perfection. Hence his nickname.
"Bawal!"
At the sound of his brother's voice, Ah Boon sprang away from the boat's side. In the weak moonlight the sea around them appeared as viscous black oil, roiling gently in the breeze. He shuddered to think what could be waiting beneath its pleated surface.
"Scared, ah, Bawal?"
Hia clambered toward Ah Boon, stepping over the ropes and nets that littered the floor of the small boat. He moved with a careless, threatening ease, like the foot-long monitor lizards that scuttled through the tall grass around the kampong. Hia grabbed Ah Boon's shoulders, turning his torso out toward the sea.
"Wah, so brave!"
Hia pushed his brother suddenly, as if to tip him out of the boat. The sea lurched up toward Ah Boon's face and he clawed at the side, letting out a small whimper.
"You know," Hia said. "Pa never tell you everything about your first trip out. He never tell you about the night swim, hor?"
Hia went on to say that it was a tradition that every fisherman's son went through on his first trip. That soon, Pa would stop the boat in the middle of the empty sea and tell Ah Boon to get out into the water.
All around them pulsed the ocean. And up above, blank and starless, was the unending sky. A cloud scraped the thin moon; the darkness deepened.
Ah Boon thought of the fish. Bright-eyed creatures with silver bodies of pure, spasming muscle. For the past year it had been his terrible job to help sort them, still alive in the nets when his father came home. Horrified by gasping, desperate mouths and manic shiny eyes, he had run away crying at first, but the jeers of his brother and the stern, clicking tongue of his father eventually reconciled him to his task.
Thus Ah Boon had learned to present a blank face, to control his expression even when he stepped by accident on a slimy, stingless jellyfish on the beach and the wet alive matter oozed between his toes. He had perfected the containment of his distaste for the unruly water that so dominated the life around him, felt in the pit of his belly like a cold glass marble he'd accidentally swallowed. But what Hia was suggesting now-to plunge his small self into the wide black sea-this he could not bear.
"Don't want" was all he said.
"Don't want?" Hia cried, almost gleefully. "You got no choice! You must swim away, far, far away, until you hear us call you back. It's the tradition. ...
