Review: A Certain Exposure by Jolene Tan (Epigram Books, 2014)

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Title: A Certain Exposure
Author: Jolene Tan
Publisher: Epigram Books
Publication Date: April 2014

[Before I proceed with this review, let me provide a categorical disclaimer: I’ve known Jolene for, wow, is it four years now? and have the highest respect for her work. Take this disclosure of potential prejudice for what you will. P.S.: I paid for my copy of the book, fair and square!]

Lawyer and activist Jolene Tan burst into the Singapore literary scene this year. Her first novel, A Certain Exposure follows twin brothers Brian and Andrew through the late 1980s and the 1990s, from their family apartment in a Singapore public housing estate to Andrew’s suicide in a Cambridge dorm room. The narrative jumps between their uneasy fraternity during the turbulence of high school, to Brian’s survivor’s guilt in the confines of lower-middle-class Chinese morality.

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