Book review: The Separation, by Dinah Jefferies

by Dinah Jefferies
Penguin
3.5 stars
Tessa Chan

Emma Cartwright is 11 years old when her father drags her and her younger sister, Fleur, from their home in Malacca, Malaya, onboard a ship to England. Puzzled and reluctant, she begs her father to let her leave a note to her mother, who is away visiting a sick friend. Her father takes the note and evasively assures her that their mother will be joining them "later".

Set during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, Dinah Jefferies' debut novel swings between Emma and her mother Lydia's perspectives. We follow Emma on her gloomy voyage to England, while Lydia returns to their house only to find it empty.

Immediately fearing the worst - the tension between the Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army means nobody feels safe - Lydia embarks on a journey across Malaya to track down her family. She's devastated when she's informed that they have perished in a fire, yet is unable to fully accept their death until she sees proof.

At the beginning of her travels, Lydia comes across a young, abandoned Malay boy, Maznan; she ends up taking him along with her. They provide each other with mutual support - a surrogate family of sorts. She also meets the exotic Adil: a magnetic, mysterious man who she's drawn to, yet is unsure whether to trust.

The plot moves at a nimble pace. Lydia never feels fully at home in Malaya: expatriates are no longer protected and guerillas lurk in the dense, menacing jungle that surrounds them. In her eyes it's an "impenetrable world of myth and magic, a place where colonial officialdom fought Chinese rebellion, where falsehood was rife, and having a white skin made you a red-haired devil".