Blonde Lotus
by Cecilie Gamst Berg
Haven Books, $145
Kat Glaso, the Blonde Lotus of the title, shares several characteristics with Cecilie Gamst Berg, who wrote this book. Of similar age, both are Norwegians settled in Hong Kong and both are passionate about Chinese poker and the Cantonese language.
The portrait of the author, posing with a group of Chinese blue-collar workers, alludes to the fictional Kat's penchant for Chinese men: hairdressers, cooks, firemen, policemen, even the occasional businessman. The Styrofoam dentures on the cover are surely those Kat bought from a Hong Kong funeral wares shop. But, there are differences. 'Now, I was going to taste dog meat,' Kat says. 'Well, anything to shock my mother.' But, in dedicating Blonde Lotus to her mother, Berg adds: 'Please don't read it!'
Firmly identified as a first novel, the Blonde Lotus reads like Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, and is equally convincing as a genuine first-person confession - although, as sexual encounters multiply, one begins to doubt that the narrator can really remember the details.