Synopsis:
Freya moves to Singapore to live with her Dad and his new family. Clementine and the little twins Billy and Eddie. Although Freya loves her little brothers she finds it difficult to settle down and see herself as part of the family. She’s forever frightened for the twins and doesn’t trust herself to be their big sister.
Singapore is full of amazing stories and places. Freya arrives during the month of the hungry ghost, a time when spirits roam the earth searching for people who remember their lives. One night a girl in a white dress appears in the garden. Freya follows this mysterious figure to a nearby cemetery and strikes up conversation. Soon she learns that this girl is called Ling.
Ling is desperate to learn more about the life she one lived in order to escape the realm of the dead. Freya sets out on a quest to uncover Ling’s past but her search leads to some family secrets of her own.
Review:
The author of The Missing Barbegazi returns with another brilliant but subtly-told story. This is about grief, about family and about the importance of keeping the memories of the people we have loved alive.
Freya is a wonderful character – adventurous but not in the loud, daring way of lots of explorer characters. Outdoors is a sanctuary to her. A place she feels at one with and has complete respect for. She’s an empathetic explorer and this comes out in her reaction to the wild spaces she finds in Singapore. Singapore isn’t a city people would instantly associate with outdoor spaces and seeing it through this lens was fascinating. Freya finds a cemetery which is full of overgrown plants and wildlife and this remarkable setting is where she gets to know Ling.
When Freya tells her family about Ling they insist she is making up imaginary friends like she did once before. This clue is the first of many in Freya’s own story while she also searches for clues to Ling’s identity. A story unfolds about early 20th Century Singapore, Morse Code, and the relationships within one family.
At times Freya seems very much alone – her mother is unwell and in a different country. Her father is lost in his high-flying career and literally flies all over the world in pursuit of money and success. His new wife, Clementine, is engaged in her own projects, many of which involve social networking and playing the part of a happy and successful person with the perfect family. This adds to the story because it explains why it is left to Freya and Ling to uncover forgotten truths and confront difficult pasts. Ling may be my new favourite ghost because this isn’t a terrifying haunting int he conventional but it is one with massive emotional stakes.
Ghost stories are so often associated with cold and miserable places, old halls, and very British conventions about banishment and exorcism. It was lovely to break away from these tropes and to see how a culture other than the one I know speaks about ghosts and death. Remembering loved ones is a cause close to my heart – after my mother died in 2019 I was shocked at how quickly people refused to speak about her. Were offended, even, if I spoke about her or about how I missed her. This story begins with a real festival – The Hungry Ghost Festival – where food is left in offering to the spirit of ancestors. This closeness, this time to recall who people were in life, is beautiful and it is lovely to see how it the story differs to more familiar ghost narratives.
H.S. Norup is a stellar author. Her stories are filled with landscpae, adventure and empathy. Their fantasy is grounded in very real lives and places. The myths she draws on are centuries old but the tales she tells are fresh and modern. The Hungry Ghost is a successful second book and I recommend it to readers young and not so young.
- The Hungry Ghost by H.S. Norup is available now from Pushkin Press. RRP. £7.99
