{"product_id":"ponti-9781501173127","title":"Ponti","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn award-winning novel about the value of friendships in present-day Singapore--a \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003estirring debut...relatable yet unsettling [that] smartly captures earnest teenage myopathy through a tumultuous high school relationship\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review).\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"I am Miss Frankenstein, I am the bottom of the bell curve.\"\u003c\/i\u003e So declares Szu, a teenager living in a dark, dank house on a Singapore cul-de-sac, at the beginning of this richly atmospheric and endlessly surprising tale of non-belonging and isolation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFriendless and fatherless, Szu lives in the shadow of her mother Amisa, once a beautiful actress--who gained fame for her portrayal of a ghost--and now a hack medium performing séances with her sister in a rusty house. When Szu meets the privileged, acid-tongued Circe, an unlikely encounter develops into a fraught friendship that will haunt them both for decades to come. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith remarkable emotional acuity, dark comedy, and in vivid prose, Sharlene Teo's \u003ci\u003ePonti\u003c\/i\u003e traces the suffocating tangle the lives of four misfits, women who need each other as much as they need to find their own way. It is \"at once a subtle critique of the pressures of living in a modern Asian metropolis; a record of the swiftness and ruthlessness with which Southeast Asia has changed over the last three decades; a portrait of the old juxtaposed with the new (and an accompanying dialogue between nostalgia and cynicism); an exploration of the relationship between women against the backdrop of social change; and, occasionally, a love story--all wrapped up in the guise of a teenage coming-of-age novel...Teo is brilliant\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTeo, Sharlene:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Sharlene Teo is a Singaporean writer based in the UK. She is the winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writers' Award for \u003ci\u003ePonti, \u003c\/i\u003eher first novel. Her writing has appeared in publications such as \u003ci\u003eEsquire \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eUK, Magma Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eEunoia Review.\u003c\/i\u003e She is the recipient of the 2013 David T.K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship and the 2014 Sozopol Fiction Fellowship.","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50492678996242,"sku":"9781501173127","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_35e22ca9-f5b4-4be0-84e2-467b6a0b76ff.jpg?v=1730603443","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/ponti-9781501173127","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}