book
pick
Haunted by Hong Kong
Writer exorcises ghosts with debut novel
By Diana Jordan
ALICE GREENWAY’S secrets are and she was in middle school, her
tenderly revealed by a voice as soft memories became secrets. She
as her writing is sensuous. The needed to express the nostalgia bub-author of White Ghost Girls admits bling up inside her. She needed to
to being a closet writer who, after write these secrets.
midnight, coaxed back the world in “It was quite hard to talk about
which she grew up: Hong Kong all the places that we lived. It felt
during the Vietnam War. like you were bragging when you
Her dad covered the war for a talked about Hong Kong or
decade, and she briefly followed in Jerusalem or foreign places, and
his journalist footsteps as an adult, people also didn’t have much refer-before she became a mother to two ence to it,” she says. So, she held it
girls who are now thrilled with her in. “It’s a secret part of you, and so
debut novel’s success. it grows in your imagination and
She wrote whenever she could Alice Greenway then it’s good material.”
snatch a few hours completely to herself. After living in Hong Kong, Los Angeles,
IAN RU THERFORD
“There’s something nice about being a secret Washington, D.C., and New England as a child,
writer and having a secret life that nobody knows Greenway now lives in Scotland with her daughters,
about, and you just surprise them at the end,” who are just entering their teenage years. She is still
Greenway tells The Connection. drawn to Asia, feeling as much a part of Hong Kong
Greenway says White Ghost Girls, this month’s as she does New England, but won’t move while her
Book Pick, was sparked by her desire to resubmerge girls are in their beloved Scottish schools.
herself in Asia’s lush vegetation, seductive aromas, Despite writing White Ghost Girls in “a really pri-
indescribable “juiciness,” even the white gloves that vate way,” Greenway is now exposed. And she’s not
girls wore in the summer of ’ 67. totally happy about that. With her first novel long-
White Ghost Girls is about sisters Frankie and listed for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, there’s
Kate, “secret sisters,” as the younger, narrator Kate, more pressure as she writes her second novel. “I
explains. Greenway herself was the middle of three always feel like it’s quite bad luck to talk about what
sisters, the asthmatic one. “There’s probably some I’m writing,” she says, adding only that it is a chal-
mixture of all of us in the two characters,” she lenge to write a story that she must purely imagine.
admits, “and it’s really much more about my own At times, Greenway misses the anonymity she
childhood than about my own daughters.” possessed when secretly writing late at night. She
Kate feels overly responsible for her older sister, notes, “There’s something very liberating when peo-
as Greenway once did. A rebellious Frankie, howling ple don’t know anything about you, and they under-
like a monkey in church, grew from Greenway’s real estimate you, rather than overestimate you.” C
childhood fear that her older sister—in that very
same church—would step over the line. “Fiction can
capture the way you really felt,” she says, “not exactly
the facts of what happened, but the truth about how
you felt about something.”
Greenway also drew on the true sensuousness of
Hong Kong, pouring a surfeit of flora and fauna and
smells and colors into White Ghost Girls. Then, as
she pared back the descriptive parts, the plot got
darker and darker. Greenway surmises she had a lot
of feelings of being somehow involved with, or
responsible for, the violence of the Vietnam War
that raged on around her family, and those emotions colored the book, but adds that in writing “I
exorcized my ghosts, my white ghosts.”
Greenway is tremendously grateful for her family’s life overseas, but when they returned to the States,
Pepnnıiec’s k
Pennie Clark Ianniciello
Costco Book Buyer
IF I’VE SAID IT once, I’ve
said it 100 times: There’s
little in this life that
makes me happier than
discovering a talented,
first-time author. Alice
Greenway and her debut
novel, White Ghost Girls,
provide just that kind of
delicious thrill.
Greenway’s experience
of living in Hong Kong as a
child is made obvious in
every last, luscious and
sensuous detail—which
easily play to all five
senses. The result is a
novel of substance and
beauty that will remain
with readers long after the
last page is done.
White Ghost Girls is
available in most Costco
warehouses and at
costco.com. C
FRANCE FREEMAN
Diana Jordan reviews books and interviews authors
for TV, the Web, radio and print; anchors the news
in Portland, Oregon; creates podcasts; and presents
“The Gentle Art of Conversation.”
News about scheduled book signings
at Costco and a book giveaway can
be found in “Book Look,” only in the Online Edition
at costco.com under “Costco magazine.”
Signed book
giveaway
COSTCO HAS 10 autographed
copies of Alice Greenway’s White
Ghost Girls to give away.
To enter, print your name, membership number, address and daytime phone number on a postcard
or letter and send it to: Alice
Greenway, The Costco Connection,
P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-
1088; or fax it to (425) 313-6718.
No purchase is necessary.
Entries must be
received or postmarked by midnight, October 2,
2006. Void where
prohibited.
Employees of
Costco and their
families are not eligible. Winners will be
notified by mail. One
entry per household.
Send your feedback
on this month’s book to:
discussionquestions@costco.com
