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.
