Disguises

"Go back to where ya come from!" This is when Cathie Lee, a Gen Y Australian-born Chinese, realises she is an Australian girl forced to wear a Chinese disguise. A journalism student, for an assignment she interviews an old man she meets in a café. But the story he tells about a love affair in 1960s Hong Kong, involving the Cultural Revolution, police corruption, triads, murder and murky family secrets, detonates a time bomb. Peter too is in disguise ... Three people in love but only two are alive. Then only one. Take a chapter from Puberty Blues, stir in some Looking for Alibrandi, fold in some Noble House, season with a dash of Cultural Revolutionary sauce, and you have something of the flavour of Disguises. (Peter's) story was the most beautiful love story I'd ever read. Cathie Lee had undergone the age-old mythic journey of the hero, and she'd been successful. This is, indeed, a story for our times, and any time. Liz Winfield, Hobart Poet