Hong Kong-born author on her autobiographical novel about two sisters living apart, one of whom has Down syndrome, that reads like a fairy tale
- Hannah Bent has a sister with Down syndrome living far away from her, just as Marlowe does in her novel When Things are Alive They Hum
- She makes the sisters Eurasian. Why? ‘A character being biracial explores the push and pull between different cultures,’ says this former ‘third-culture kid’
When Things are Alive They Hum by Hannah Bent, pub. Ultimo Press
Harper and Marlowe are sisters. Harper, who is 20, has Down syndrome, which she prefers to call Up syndrome. She lives with their British father and Chinese grandmother in Hong Kong. Marlowe is in London, doing her PhD and living with her boyfriend, Olly, who makes such helpful expository remarks as, “Your research on the symbiotic relationship between the arion larvae and the population of the sabuleti will significantly aid the conservation practices of the butterfly.”
One day, a letter arrives from Harper: “It has been 11 months and 2 days sinse you visited us at home and 3 hole years sinse you left home for your bugs university.” Harper’s heart is failing. She wants her older sister to return to Hong Kong.
Reluctantly, guiltily, Marlowe complies. Sixteen years earlier, the girls’ mother died and Marlowe doesn’t want death to come knocking at the family door again. Being of a scientific mind, she begins to research medical options. On page 168, she – but here the veil of secrecy will have to fall on a plot mechanism that lasts until page 314 because the author, Hong Kong-born Hannah Bent, and her Australian publishers, while keen to promote her first book, would also prefer not to draw attention to half of it.
“It’s about two sisters, it’s not a political novel,” says Bent, over coffee in the Hong Kong Island neighbourhood of Kennedy Town. Having left Hong Kong at 18 to study film – first in London, then Australia – she returned three years ago via her husband’s work.
She’s now 35 although, when asked, lops 10 years off until she realises her mistake and laughs, amazed. Perhaps it’s not so surprising: Marlowe is 25 in the novel and it’s taken Bent, who has an older sister with Down syndrome, a decade to write it. That’s where she’s been in her head while the world’s politics have moved on. Hence the chilled feet in 2021 Hong Kong.
For the reader, Harper’s voice is further divided. Shakespeare-loving Harper is writing her autobiography; like the letter, these extracts stud the novel with vividly idiosyncratic spelling. The rest of the time, her thoughts – often lyrical and unfettered – conform to alphabetical norms on the page. This reviewer was rather sorry Harper’s voice didn’t retain its imaginative spelling all the way through. Did Bent consider that option?
“The spelling was an indication of where she is on the spectrum,” she says. “It’s important that I give a hint there’s a difference between her inner world and what’s she’s expressing outwardly.”
In fact, Harper is the more consistent character.
“She was easier to write, to be honest. I love experimenting with language.” Bent’s sister, Camilla, had also been a lively, Shakespeare-loving extrovert until she contracted encephalitis at 16 and the person she once was disappeared overnight. Now 38, she’s living with their parents in Australia. Bent says Camilla can exult “I’m famous!” in appreciation of the book “but she can’t express complex feelings in the way she could”.
So the novel mourns a lost child. Maybe that’s why it reads like a fairy tale: two sisters, a far-off land, dark travels in forbidden woods, a magic plum tree, those metaphoric butterflies, the hum … There’s even what the girls call their “stepmonster” – Disney-fied Irene, with red lips, red nails, red dress, who has her eye on their father – plus that Chinese grandmother, who whips up comfort food and endlessly chews White Rabbit sweets. (Bent, a thoughtful woman who sticks her ground, says that whatever race the grandmother would have been, she’d have chewed on sweets.)
In the early stages of writing the novel, she was also writing a screenplay of the novel. “I used to write plays for my sister and I write in a visual way.” Certain scenes still retain that cinematic flavour but she soon realised the tandem approach wasn’t working.
I didn’t realise I was writing about some form of death for her until late. Which is interesting.
In 2013, she won the Ray Koppe Young Writers Award in Australia for an unpublished work; the prize was a two-week residency with other writers. “A wonderful experience,” she says. “Having said that, I wanted to remain true and I put the manuscript aside after the award for a while. But I still had my notebook, I wrote in that. I didn’t have to make it a story.”
She would write scenes on Post-it notes, shuffle them on the floor and see if she could work them in. Action was secondary. (Authors usually plead for secrecy to preserve dramatic twists. In this case, the plot details of the central section – set in mainland China – are so sketchy, it’s clearly a background peg on which to hang Marlowe’s character arc.) She was missing Hong Kong, she was missing her sister.
Holding on to both, she struggled with an ending. Was that because she didn’t want to anticipate – ? “My sister’s death?” she says. “I didn’t realise I was writing about some form of death for her until late. Which is interesting. Two years before I let the manuscript go, I twigged I was grieving. I’d written everything years ago.”
The book’s ending is fairy-tale happy. In real life, too, there is an element of a magic wand being waved. Bent unexpectedly returned to Hong Kong. Despite serious health issues, she became pregnant and now has a one-year-old girl. In Australia, Camilla is now expressing herself through painting. “Her voice is coming out in different ways,” says her sister.
Bent tells readers it’s up to them how they define the hum. For her, she says, “it’s the interconnectedness and what lies beyond grief”.
Part of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, Hannah Bent, in conversation with Antony Dapiran, will be live at The Fringe Club, Central, 7pm-8pm, on Nov 11. Visit festival.org.hk for details
