The Betrayed by Reine Arcache Melvin (Europa Editions)

The story flowing from the pages of The Betrayed has the thickened, sweet darkness of freshly drawn blood. Reine Arache Melvin has created three main characters who could easily take center stage in a Greek tragedy. They inhabit a place that everyone has heard of, during an unnamed time that many will think they can identify. But the portraits of the two sisters, Lali and Pilar, along with Arturo,  the man they both long for, reveal only enough of what takes place around them to create skillful traps. One quick snap and all that seems to be understood becomes a lie.

The death of their father brings Lali, Pilar, and their mother back from a U.S. exile to their home in Manila. “The General” has been ousted but politics are so convoluted that even the new female leader must honor his godson, Lali’s husband Arturo. As new alliances are forged, Lali and Arturo’s marriage weakens. Arturo fell in love with a seductress. Now she’s soon to become a mother, a truth that shakes them.

Confused and floundering, they both take refuge in old habits. Arturo becomes attracted to his wife’s younger sister and pregnant Lali gives Pilar permission to comfort him. Lali, horrified by her changing body that no longer rivets the male gaze, comes across a foreign man in a shopping mall and decides he’ll become her prey. She fascinates him, but not for the reasons she expects.

Then both sisters are ensnared in the brewing revolution that lurks beneath the surface of the Philippines. Their story swiftly encompasses a burning village, a public decapitation, a dinner party with a man who would cheerfully see everyone at the table dead at his feet.

“I was wrong about Lali. People surprise you,” Lali once heard her father tell someone over the phone. She and everyone around her continues to surprise, going against easy assessments, right up to the conclusion of their stories. 

So does the novel’s setting. Arcache Melvin, in tactile detail, shows Machiavellian cruelty, casual corruption, and wealth that makes all wishes come true. Her trio are aristocrats, born into privilege and comfort that’s denied to the majority of Filipinos. Yet even with the insulation provided by their birth and breeding, both Lali and Pilar understand more about the people who surround them than does the foreigner Lali picked up in the mall, an investigative photographer who has steeped himself in places the sisters have yet to see, or the foreign missionaries who have made their homes in the middle of a revolution.  

“You don’t go deeper, “ Lali tells her photographer, “It’s all one-sided.” Yet within the kaleidoscope of violence and shifting loyalties of the Philippines, going deeper is like being hacked with a machete. The pain is excruciating and unfathomable.

Aracache Melvin takes her readers deeper. With skillful twists of her kaleidoscope, she shows one side, then another, with vertiginous speed and clarity. The Betrayed splits open a crack into a hidden world, quickly showing its brutality, its tenderness, its ghosts, and its darkest corners--and still by the end, readers will find themselves for answers to the enigmas they’ve been shown. “In the end, life gave more than it took away,” but for whom?~Janet Brown

Tall Story by Candy Gourlay (David Fickling Books)

Candy Gourlay is a Filipino writer based in the United Kingdom. Tall Story is her debut novel, originally published in hardback in 2010. It has won the National Book Award of the Philippines in 2012 and the Crystal Kite Award for Europe in 2011. It was also shortlisted for a number of other literary awards. 

It centers on the story of two siblings or more precisely, a half-sister and a half-brother. Bernardo, named after his father, lives in a small village called San Andres in the Philippines with his aunt and uncle. He has a mother, a sister named Amandolina, and a step-father named William who all live in London. Bernardo has been waiting for years to get approval from the British government to allow him to move to the U.K. to be with his family. He has been waiting for sixteen years and…he’s still waiting.

Amandolina is thirteen years old but goes by the name of Andi (with an I) and loves playing basketball. Although she’s the “shortest and youngest on the team” she was chosen as the point guard for her school’s team. It’s a dream come true for her…until her dream is shattered when her mother tells her that they bought a new house and will be moving in two weeks. 

The other biggest news is that the Home Office has finally approved Bernardo’s papers. He will be coming to live with the family in London in two weeks. But here is something special about Bernardo. He isn’t your average, ordinary sixteen-year-old. He is rather tall for his age. In fact, he is taller than any of his peers or the adults that surround him. Bernardo is eight-feet tall!

Andi hasn’t seen her brother in ten years. She has only been to the Philippines once in her life, when she was three years old. The only thing she remembers from the trip is that there was a massive earthquake. After that, her mother refuses to take Andi with her to see Bernardo. 

The last time Bernardo’s mother visited, she was surprised by how tall he was. His father was only five-eight, and here he was at fourteen years old and already six foot tall. She took him to the doctor and the doctor said, “There’s nothing wrong with this boy”. Before she flew back to London, she made her sister promise to tell her if Bernardo gets any taller. He did, but Auntie and Bernardo never did mention that to his mother, and now this eight-foot young man would be headed to London. 

The people in Bernardo’s barrio believe he is Bernardo Carpio reincarnate. Bernardo tells them that no, “My name is Bernardo, after my father. And my surname is not Carpio. It’s Hipolito. Hi-po-li-to. Bernardo Carpio is a giant, everyone knows that. He’s a story, an old legend.”. But the people look at his eight-foot frame and just laugh. 

It was Old Tibo, the local barber who told Bernardo the story of Bernardo Carpio. He recited the story as he cut Bernardo’s hair. It was a time when Gods and mortals lived together and some fell in love. The children of these mixed marriages were giants, “who looked human but were of a magical size. They may not have been gods but they were immortal - unlike the human side of their families.”.

The giants who chose to stay on earth with their mothers lived peacefully for a time. But as they were immortal, after their mothers died, they people turned against them. Bernardo Carpio decided to fight back with kindness and had become a folk-hero to the people of San Andres. They believe that Bernado Carpio has returned to keep them safe from earthquakes. Who knows what will happen if they find out that Bernardo will be leaving them to live in London? 

The story is written through the eyes of Bernardo and Andi in alternating chapters. It is a coming-of-age story as well as a story of adjusting to a new culture and foreign culture. Gourlay also blends a bit of folklore and magic to add a bit of spice to the story that you won’t want it to end. ~Ernie Hoyt

Malaya: Essays on Freedom by Cinelle Barnes (Little a)

“We had everything, then we had nothing. But I always had books and dance.” When Cinelle Barnes is asked about her childhood in Manila, this is how she sums it up, “like the summary of a fairy tale.” But within the space that ought to have been the fairy tale’s happy ending, Barnes comes perilously close to losing everything—books, dance, and her strength. She leaves the Philippines when an aunt on Long Island decides to adopt her and gives her everything she wants, including a Communion-white dress as a gift on her seventeenth birthday, which she will wear to INS offices as soon as her adoption is finalized. There an immigration officer tells her she’s two years too late, to become naturalized by adoption she should have been there before her sixteenth birthday.

Paralyzed by depression, Barnes lies in bed at her sister’s house, unable to brush her hair or her teeth. “My spirit or gumption or essence departed from my body.” Barnes’s sister knew of only one way to cure her, by forcing her to move and took her to work at the cleaning company their brother has launched. Slowly Barnes returns to life, graduating from high school and working her way through college as a cleaner, a waitress, a nanny—jobs that don’t require proof of legal residency. She doesn’t choose U.S. citizenship until she has a degree and is married, with a child. A year after that her first book, Monsoon Mansion, is published and Barnes decides her epitaph will include the words “telling stories that dragged them out of their fiction.”

Her stories are mosaic—a tile here, another in the opposite corner. Their jagged honesty drags readers out of their fiction and the fluid beauty of her writing keeps attentions riveted until her entire story comes into focus. Barnes’s success happens in spite of this country, not because of it. She shows that even for a smart, ambitious, determined immigrant who arrives from a former U.S. territory with English as a primary language, brown skin ensures a long series of barriers and micro-aggressions. She makes it plain that sad stories kill as efficiently as cigarettes, if they aren’t brought to the surface to be heard. She flinches when her child tells her “I want to be a writer” and hopes the little girl will choose to be a physicist instead.

Soon after her daughter is born, living in a southern state where her husband’s family has roots going back for over 200 years. Barnes longs for some facet of life that belongs to her alone and takes up surfing lessons. She finds a teacher who gives lessons for free, tough, blonde, looking like a character from Blue Crush, and a mother. Happy to have met another woman with “a proclivity for dangerous sports, Barnes invites her new friend to come over for tea. When she asks the woman what she did before taking up surfing, she’s told she’s talking to a former drug delivery girl who never got caught. “Nobody will stop a young blonde girl, that’s the truth. We just get away with things, you know?”

Barnes, who never had the luxury of breaking the smallest law for fear of deportation, who couldn’t get on a plane or even order a cocktail, who lived “in perpetual hiding” forces a grin in response and hides her anger. “I’m Brown, an immigrant. I’m forever clean.” And in one story of one encounter, she nails white privilege to the wall, leaving none of us white women exempt.

Cinelle Barnes has laid claim to the personal essay and has made that form her own. Her stories etch themselves upon the minds of their readers, with their fierce tenderness and unwavering truth. I hope with all of my white-privileged heart that her next book finds a home with a publisher that is not owned by Amazon.~Janet Brown

Mindanao : From Samal to Surallah by Ronald de Jong (ThingsAsian Press)

Mindanao is the Philippines second largest and southernmost island. It is here where freelance photographer and writer Ronald de Jong makes his home. In Mindanao : From Samal to Surallah, Jong is your virtual tour guide “for those travelers who are not familiar with southern Filipino culture.” 

For the uninitiated, Jong informs you that the safest areas to travel in Mindanao are Davao City and its surroundings, the Sarangani Bay area, and the province of South Cotabato. We are told the greatest way to explore the island is by car or motorbike along the Maharlika Highway, also known as the Pan-Philippine Highway. 

The road is over 2000 miles in length and starts from Laoag City on the northern island of Luzon, passes through the Visayan Islands of Samar and Leyte, and continues to the city of Zamboanga in Mindanao. Jong will take us on a journey following the Davao-General Santos-Koronadal Highway which is a small part of the Marhalika. “Passing through this toll-free portion of the Pan-Philippine Highway will take you down small-town roads, city streets, mountain passes, rice fields and plantations.

Jong is very thorough in his guide as he provides background information on each area such as which tribes are you likely to encounter, a bit of the history of each destination as well as giving us shopping tips, resort recommendations and what there is to see and do. 

Our trip starts on the island of Samal which is also known as the Island Garden City. Around this area, one can get close to nature by seeing caves, mangroves, natural rock formations, swamps, and coconut trees. Or you can enjoy staying at one of the resorts along the coast where you can go jet skiing and windsurfing.  It is also one of the Philippines top diving spots. 

From Samal Island, it is a short trip to Davao city which is also known as “the window to Mindanao”. For the more adventurous traveler, you can climb Mount Apo, Philippines highest peak at 9.692 feet. Continuing south, you will find yourself in Surallah where you can go river-rafting on the Davao River or spelunking in the Marilog District. 

I also find that one of the best ways to discover the culture of another country is to experience the local cuisine. Jong does not disappoint as he provides us with a menu of the different types of street food one can try. Some of the dishes Jong introduces have the most colorful names such as a skewer of crispy chicken wings which are known as PAL, named after the Philippines Air Lines. Another dish called isaw (grilled or deep-fried pig or chicken intestines on a skewer). They are known locally as IUD because of its shape. The serious gastronome can try balut which can be described as “eggs with legs”.  It is a cooked, fertilized duck egg where you can see the embryo of the duck.  

Mindanao is more than just a guide to the island. It is also a photo essay featuring beautiful full color pictures taken by Jong himself. The place has something for everyone, from the package-deal tourist to the budget-conscious backpacker. If you’re longing to get off the beaten path and want an adventure worth remembering, Mindanao might be the place for you. Jong certainly makes me want to go. ~Ernie Hoyt

Available from ThingsAsianBooks

Liberace's Filipino Cousin by David R. Brubaker (ThingsAsian Press)

One of my favorite genres to read is the travel essay. I love to travel and to share stories about where I've been and what I've experienced, so it should come as no surprise that I’m also an avid armchair traveler. The destination where I recently found myself traveling was through the eyes of David R. Brubaker in his collection of essays on his life and adventures in the Philippines.

Forget the Lonely Planet guide. Brubaker takes us even further off the beaten path to places we would never have considered, much less known about, without his amusing and entertaining anecdotes. His narrative ranges from stories of the "all-rounders," the Filipina maids and nannies who virtually raise the children of elite foreign nationals, to his quest to find out the members of a mysterious group called "The Lucky Buggers Club."  Brubaker discovers the club consists of the male "trailing spouses" of expat wives, a group who spends all its time playing golf, drinking beer, and not having to work.

In common with Brubaker's wife Marilyn, I did find one of his chapters quite disturbing, in which he writes about a Filipino local named Tony. No matter how you try to rationalize this man’s trade, the bottom line is his story is about a man who is proud of hooking up young Filipina women with older foreign gentlemen. Yes, the man is proud to traffic women and defends his practice by saying he is providing a service to help these women and their families flee the poverty of their nation. (Unfortunately, I don't believe this is a problem confined to the Philippines as it is a widespread issue throughout Southeast Asia.)

But there is no doubt after reading this book that you will  want to make plans to visit a country that’s so varied and colorful with its lush green vegetation, islands still ripe for development, friendly people who may be poor but are happy, sunshine, and beautiful beaches. However, Brubaker doesn’t shun the reality of the crime and poverty of Manila or other areas of the nation even as he makes clear that if you use your common sense there are hundreds of adventures to be had in the Philippines.

I thoroughly enjoyed my adventures in the Philippines as seen through the eyes of Brubaker and believe that anyone who reads Liberace's Filipino Cousin will enjoy it too.~ Ernie Hoyt

Available at ThingsAsian Books