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A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret.
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.
A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald's irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.
Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Reimagining the Chinese folktale "The Legend of the White Snake," this is a novel about being seen for who you are—and, ultimately, how to live free.
"Brilliant...the author seamlessly integrates centuries of Chinese culture and history with shrewd social commentary on class, gender, and race. This propulsive story astonishes." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The obvious dichotomy between their views and values, coupled with reptilian amorality, set off a series of events ranging from graphically violent and deeply tragic to romantically bittersweet and deliberately, eloquently silly. Slithers gleefully around hot-button issues such as gender politics and racism without a whiff of didacticism." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] cosmpolitan, thrilling tale...This riveting, fast-paced novel, with its seamless balance of fantasy and realism, explores contemporary issues through an otherworldly lens." —Booklist
"This was a wild ride and I loved every second of it." —Jami Attenberg, author of A Reason to See You Again and The Middlesteins
"Slick, shrewd, and brimming with suspense, Sister Snake explores the unspeakable cost of staying true to who you are in a world built on lies. Amanda Lee Koe delivers a thrilling, action-packed fable made for these topsy-turvy times." —Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
"Amanda Lee Koe has written a wild, sexy steroidal burst of a novel. A freewheeling retelling of an ancient Chinese legend, Sister Snake is an inquiry into self-reinvention, escaping one's destiny, belonging and all that makes us human—or not." —Tash Aw, author of We, The Survivors and Five Star Billionaire
This information about Sister Snake was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © Kirsten Tan
Amanda Lee Koe is the fiction editor of Esquire Singapore and the editor of the National Museum of Singapore's film journal, Cinémathèque Quarterly. She was a 2013 fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and a 2016 awardee of the PEN/Heim Translation Grant. Her working manuscript for this novel won the 2017 Henfield Prize, awarded to the best work of fiction by a graduating MFA candidate at Columbia University. She is also the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize for her first book, the story collection Ministry of Moral Panic. Born in Singapore, she has lived in Bangkok, Beijing, and Berlin, and is now based in New York.
Link to Amanda Lee Koe's Website
Name Pronunciation
Amanda Lee Koe: koh
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