Ponti

(Paperback)

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Remarkable' - Ian McEwan. 2003, Singapore. Friendless and fatherless, sixteen-year-old Szu lives in the shadow of her mother Amisa, once a beautiful actress and now a hack medium performing sances with her sister in a rusty house. When Szu meets the privileged, acid-tongued Circe, an unlikely encounter develops into an intense friendship and offers Szu a means of escape from her mother's alarming solitariness. Seventeen years later, Circe is struggling through a divorce in fraught and ever-changing Singapore when a project comes up at work: a remake of the cult seventies horror film series 'Ponti', the very project that defined Amisa's short-lived film career. Suddenly Circe is knocked off balance: by memories of the two women she once knew, by guilt, and by a past that threatens her conscience. Told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti is about friendship and memory, about the things we do when we're on the cusp of adulthood that haunt us years later. Beautifully written by debut author Sharlene Teo, and enormously atmospheric, Ponti marks the launch of an exciting new literary voice in the vein of Zadie Smith.

Reviews

Remarkable . . . her characters glow with life and humour and minutely observed desperation -- Ian McEwan
A radiant, achingly beautiful novel about relationships between women -- Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From
A triumph: a nuanced examination of betrayal and grief, memory and the corrupting effects of beauty * Sunday Times *
Ponti is one of the more assured debuts Ive read recently . . . its the rare, real deal and Teos a writer well be reading for many years to come * Financial Times *
An unforgettable story of female friendship * Elle Magazine *
A vivid coming-of-age debut . . . seamless . . . Teo is brilliant in her portrayal of teenage anxiety * Guardian *
One of the most exciting books I have read in ages . . . as funny as it is strange, it is complex as it is light . . . it deserves prizes -- Nikesh Shukla
A startlingly poetic and impressive debut * Independent *
Witty, moving and richly evocative . . . Sharlene Teo has produced not just a singular debut, but a milestone in South East Asian literature -- Tash Aw, author of Five Star Billionaire
Haunting . . . Sharlene Teo is a daring and genuinely original novelist -- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
Vivid, disquieting * Daily Mail *
Teo's debut stands out from the crowd . . . the offbeat charm of this lush tale proves a stealthy delivery mechanism for a quiet tragedy of intergenerational misunderstanding * Metro *
Strange and compelling . . . a breath of fictional fresh air -- Shena Mackay, Kate Summerscale, and Owen Sheers, judges of the Deborah Rogers Writers Award
Spanning 17 years and told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti is a stunning first novel with a wry, rebellious heart * AnOther *
The loneliness of adolescence is a monstrosity manifesting in equally ugly and poetic ways. Ponti is a weird and beautiful bildungsroman and Teo's writing shines as totally radical * The Skinny *
Ponti is darkly hilarious. It offers up all the anxiety, snark, sadness, and wonder of being a teenager. Teo guides us through the grunge of growing up. She asks what it means to be a monster and what it means to be beautiful. Is it possible to be both -- Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You
A sticky, atmospheric tale of resentment and loneliness * Tatler *
Teos portrait of Singapore is so good it would not be a surprise if Ponti were a contender for the next Ondaatje Prize, awarded to a work that best evokes spirit of a place. People talk about the great American novel, or, in Britain, the state of the nation novel. Ponti is a great Singaporean novel, and a marvelous investigation of the state of the tiny island nation * South China Morning Post *
You know those books you can read again And again And again Well, prepare for Sharlene Teos incredible Ponti . . . a densely layered story of a fading horror actress, Amisa; her unhappy teenage daughter, Szu and her acid-tongued best friend, Circe, which jumps from generations, decades and viewpoints, weaving in unsettling myths to boot . . . entrancing . . . A modern gem * Emerald Street *
Ponti's cultural commentary and multi-generational chorus of voices do indeed recall White Teeth [by Zadie Smith], while its unflinching depiction of young female friendship echoes Smith's most recent, Swing Time . . . by the time the novel has finished, there is no denying Amisa's dream has been realised. These three women and their stories will live on; they have been made immortal. * Independent Ireland *
Exquisite, lush and menacing . . . the Singapore in Sharlene Teo's Ponti is vivid and immediate, its people complex, beautifully sketched and captivating . . . colourful and bewitching * TLS *
Funny, achingly dark and drawn with scalpel-like precision, Ponti is one of the wittiest debut novels of 2018 * The Pool *
Ponti by Sharlene Teo is a sultry, hilarious dissection of mother-daughter relationships, and the effect of time and teenagehood on friendships, against the backdrop of Singapore B-movies. It oozes confidence. -- Nikesh Shukla * Guardian, Best summer books 2018 *
On their own, Teo's sharp characterizations and settingso alive that the book seems to create its own, humid microclimatewould set this book apart. Add to that her imaginative plot, prose that turns from humor to devastation on a dime, and original storytelling, and Ponti is a beyond-promising debut. * Booklist (starred review) *
The story, told with dark humor by an exciting new voice, navigates the intricacies and weirdness of human connections, and the impressions they leave behind * Huffington Post *

Author Bio

Sharlene Teo (b. 1987) is a Singaporean writer based in the UK. She is the winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writers' Award for Ponti, her first novel. In 2012, she was awarded the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship to undertake an MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia, where she is doing a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. She is the recipient of the 2013 David T.K Wong Creative Writing Fellowship and the 2014 Sozopol Fiction Fellowship.