I enjoyed this. It is written in the first person and it reads like an autobiography. The events are entirely credible. It has an air of reality. The story commences in 1942, in Japanese-occupied Singapore with the birth of the narrator's mother. She is rejected by her mother and brought up by an aunt until the aunt has her own child and the narrator's mother is sent back to her own natural mother. At this point the narrator describes her mother's growing up in a Singaporean Chinese family. The males of the family are worshipped and given the best of everything. The females get what is left over. The narrator's mother grows up and marries a dental student. She also goes to university but gives up her course when she falls pregnant. The young family move to Kuala Lumpur and set up a dentistry practice. However, the riots of 13 May 1969 give them a nasty shock and when the opportunity to emigrate to Australia comes up, they take it. The father and the children adapt well to life in Sydney but the mother does not fit in. Life in Sydney is beset with problems and the family goes from crisis to crisis. It may be a first novel and, I suspect it may be at least semi-autobiographical as it has an air of reality.