The Red Thread
A Chinese Tale of Love and Fate in 1830s Singapore
by Dawn Farnham
Like Chinese silk, The Red Thread is, by turns, gentle and strong, exploring a love that breaks through the divide of race and culture, a love that is both deeply physical and a marriage of souls. Set against the backdrop of 1830s Singapore where piracy, crime, triads and tigers are commonplace, this cultural romance follows the struggle of two lovers: Zhen, once the loweliest of Chinese coolies and triad member, later chosen to marry into a Peranakan family of Baba Chinese merchants; and Charlotte, an 18-year-old Scots girl and sister of Singapore's Head of Police. Two cultures bound together by the invisible threads of fate yet separated by cultural diversity.
By incorporating real figures from Singapore's historical past, Dawn Farnham brings to life the heady atmosphere of Old Singapore, where exotic beliefs and customs clash and jostle in the struggle to make a life and create mutual understanding between peoples from different worlds.
Dawn Farnham was born in Portsmouth, England in 1949. Her parents emigrated to Perth, Western Australia when she was two. She grew up a sandgroper, barefoot and free, roaming the bushy suburbs and beaches with her friends. In the sixties she, like so many other young Aussies, left on a ship for London, aged 17. In the Swinging years she met and married her journalist husband and moved to Paris, learned French and lots of other things and travelled round Europe in a Volkswagen beetle. As a foreign correspondent, her husband was posted to exotic locations and they lived in China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan in the eighties and nineties. During this time she raised two daughters and taught English. Back in London she went back to school, doing a B.A. in Japanese at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a Master's Degree at Kings College. She and her husband now live in Singapore. It is in this thriving port city-state that she found her muse and began to write, finding particular pleasure in its colourful and often wild past. This is her first novel.
“The Red Thread is an intense and passionate book—it will stir and intrigue the
reader in equal measure.”
–Nigel Barley, bestselling author of In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles and Rogue Raider
“When Charlotte MacLeod journeys from her home in Madagascar to faraway, exotic Singapore in the 1830s, little does she realize how very different her new life will be. Her brother Robert has just been named head of the local police force, and her social position, together with her boundless curiosity and formidable intellect, leads her into friendships and affairs with men and women of many nationalities, religions, and political beliefs. Farnham's debut is bittersweet and contemplative, a leisurely exploration replete with richly detailed landscapes both physical and interior. Multiple protagonists and perspectives, both Eastern and Western, and elaborate description transport the reader to a fascinating time and place brimming with mystical and poetic flourishes.”
–Booklist (Journal of the American Library Association)
“Charlotte and Robert are sibling orphans, now adults, who initially moved from Madagascar to Scotland and now reside in Singapore in the 1830s. Robert has been fortunate enough to secure a post as head of the police, and sends for Charlotte, knowing their future lies in this exotic but quickly evolving prosperous land. Charlotte quickly falls in love with the town she thinks of as "varied and faceted as a fabulous jewel." The foreign characters are intriguing as well, such as Coleman, the architect Irishman who has built most of the town in solid, beautiful style to rival any European city yet with its own natural shapes and flowers to enchant every view. Then there is the small group of wives and mistresses who come from their own mysterious Asian backgrounds yet have created an insular camaraderie to strengthen them in the terror-laden moments from both native men and beasts.
But the real threat to their security lies in the slowly emerging love between Charlotte and Zhen, a coolie who also belongs to a powerful Chinese triad group. Theirs is a passionate affair doomed to disaster. Zhen is assisted in attaining this love by his fellow coolie, Qian, a man unsure of where his sexual interests lie. Yet Zhen relies on his faith in Taoist poetry to surmount all difficulties.
How will it all end or begin? The Red Thread is an exceptionally well-written novel whose descriptions and subplots concerning the land, religious beliefs, and relationships are so engagingly presented that the reader is sure to want to keep this passionate novel, which celebrates meaningful union rather than division. A beautiful story to relish on every page.”
–Review of the Historical Novels Society (Viviane Crystal)
“Immaculately researched, Dawn has an encyclopedic recall of all the people, places and mores of the time with Singapore was a nascent colony on the edge of the world.”
–Think
“It takes prodigious research and some imagination to bring old Singapore to life. Tae a walk through High Street/along the Singapore River/Chinatown, and meet the colourful characters who built Singapore. Thoroughly enjoyable historical romance.”
–Lifestyle
“The main plot follows the cross-racial love story of two fictional characters, Zhen, initially a lowly Chinese coolie, and Charlotte, a white waif of the British Empire, who hails from Madagascar, via Scotland.
The story of Zhen and Charlotte is interwoven with an account of the real-life cross-racial relationship between George Coleman, the Irish architect who built early Singapore practically from scratch, and his Armenian-Dutch-Javanese mistress, Takouhi.
The novel feels immaculately researched, and Dawn seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of topics as diverse as Chinese secret societies, sexual customs amongst the officers of colonial power and might, tiger attacks, what the fashionable girl was wearing in the 1830s, and how the not-so fashionable girl avoided pregnancy.
So it will be no surprise to learn that she turned to fiction partly because she was determined to share her love of Singapore’s history with the widest possible audience.”
–The Daily Telegraph
