Towards Forgiveness: Sino-Tasmanian Stories From Two Islands

Towards Forgiveness: Sino-Tasmanian Stories From Two Islands
by John Biggs
Ginninderra Press

Two islands, two centuries, and just under 200 pages of shared personal relationships between Hong Kong and Tasmania.

That's the big idea behind the collection of short stories in Towards Forgiveness, a book that can be assimilated just as swiftly during a layover at Kingsford Smith airport as during a wait for the 3am ferry to Discovery Bay.

The book gets off to a promising start with some colonial-era cross-dressing, a road not taken since Australian author Peter Carey put Ned Kelly's outlaw dad, Red, in a tiered skirt and sent him off into the bush on a horse.

It's 1845 and Matthew Parker of Elizabeth Street, Hobart town, is establishing an emporium that will support him and his dear Eliza. But Eliza remains far beyond reach, 16,000 kilometres away in the English parish of Letchworth.

To help out with the business, Matthew has enlisted the services of young Joshua Wilson, who has large dark eyes that 'reflect yellow splashes of light' and, when outfitted in an ivory-coloured dress, is a dead ringer for the Letchworth maiden. For all his physical virtues, Joshua has some anger management issues that are the undoing of more than one admirer.