'Jena Chung plays the violin. She was once a child prodigy and is now addicted to sex. She's struggling a little. Her professional life comprises rehearsals, concerts, auditions and relentless practice; her personal life is spent managing family demands, those of her creative friends, and lots of sex. And then she meets Mark—much older and worldly-wise—who bewitches her. Could this be love? When Jena wins an internship with the New York Philharmonic, she thinks the life she has dreamed of is about to begin. But when Trump is elected, New York changes irrevocably and Jena along with it. She comes to learn that there are many different ways to live and love and that no one has the how-to guide for any of it—not even her indomitable mother.
'A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing unflinchingly explores the confusion of having expectations upturned, and the awkwardness and pain of being human in our increasingly dislocated world—and how, in spite of all this, we still try to become the person we want to be. It is a dazzling, original and astounding debut from a young writer with a fierce, intelligent and fearless new voice.
Source: Publisher's blurb.
The Honeyeater is Jessie Tu’s second novel, following A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing (2020). It moves between Paris, Sydney and Taipei, unravelling a story of deceit and confusion, as its protagonist, Miss Fay C, struggles to establish her identity among a cast of narcissists. Its transnational scope and powerful intimacy justify the accolades Tu has received and her growing success on the literary scene.
'My mother was a piano prodigy. She started playing as a child in Vietnam, and by the time she was a teenager, she was giving concerts. That’s how she met my father – he was in the audience watching her perform, and by the end of it, he had to know this girl. It was the early 1970s, not long before he went to war.' (Introduction)
'Grunge fiction in the 1980s and 90s featured young people living in grimy inner-city suburbs and colouring their discombobulation with drugs, booze and awkward or unfortunate sex. This kind of novel is no longer possible.' (Introduction)
'In a cultural landscape where non-white voices are often expected to represent or speak for everyone who looks like them, Jessie Tu is simply telling one story.'
'In a cultural landscape where non-white voices are often expected to represent or speak for everyone who looks like them, Jessie Tu is simply telling one story.'
'Grunge fiction in the 1980s and 90s featured young people living in grimy inner-city suburbs and colouring their discombobulation with drugs, booze and awkward or unfortunate sex. This kind of novel is no longer possible.' (Introduction)
'Jena Lin was a child prodigy: at age eight she was playing classical violin at an adult level, and by the time she was 14 she was performing solo at New York's Carnegie Hall. And then she had a breakdown.' (Introduction)
'My mother was a piano prodigy. She started playing as a child in Vietnam, and by the time she was a teenager, she was giving concerts. That’s how she met my father – he was in the audience watching her perform, and by the end of it, he had to know this girl. It was the early 1970s, not long before he went to war.' (Introduction)
